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“ Look ! ” she exclaimed excitedly, “ the sky is all red.” 

Frontispiece. 



The Twins in 
the West 


BY 


DOROTHY WHITEHILL 


NEW YORK 

BARSE AND HOPKINS 
PUBLISHERS 


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SiiKiiHUUiumuiMiiHiuimmumuumimiiiiiiuiiiiiiiuiiiuuiiiiiniiiiniiiiiiiutiuiuiiniiiiiiuiiua 









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Copyright, 1920, 
by 

BAK.SE & HOPKINS 


NOV -6 1920 


©CI.A601437 


DEDICATED TO 

THE GIRLS WHO LOVE POLLY 


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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I On the Way 9 

II Miss Weatherby 17 

III On the Wrong Track 25 

IV At Savage’s Ranch . . 37 

V Twin Star Ranch 50 

VI Janet Takes a Ride 61 

VII Daisy Weaver 76 

VIII The Twins Make a Plan 88 

IX A Formal Call 99 

X More Plans 113 

XI Trailing the Burros 121 

XII A Hint of Danger ....... 127 

XIII A Brush with Mexicans 138 

XIV A Telephone Message 149 

XV A Thrilling Ride . . . . . . .160 

XVI Daisy Has An Offer 170 

XVII The Ranch Puts on Airs 179 

XVIII More Plots 192 

XIX A Western Barbecue ...... 199 

XX The Wedding 205 

XXI Starting East 217 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


“Look!” she exclaimed excitedly, “the sky is all red.” 

Frontispiece * 

PAGE 

She had hardly gotten used to her seat before Sulky let go 

of the horse’s head, and then things began to happen . 73 ' 

“What d’you want?” he snarled. “If you’re Tom Pago’s 

sister, you can get off my property.” * 103 

“There’s something wrong with it,” she admitted, “and I 

don’t know just what.” ,185 


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l 




The Twins in the West 

CHAPTER I 

ON THE WAY 

P HYLLIS opened her eyes, yawned and 
stretched so hard that one of her sharp 
little elbows poked Janet’s shoulder. 

“Oh, Phyl, do lie still!” grumbled 
Janet sleepily, and rolled over on her side. 

“I can’t help it,” Phyllis apologized, “I’m so 
awfully uncomfortable.” “I’m sorry,” she said 
after a pause, but Janet was again breathing 
regularly, and did not reply. 

Phyllis looked up at the berth above her. It 
was pushed up as far as the curtains would 


9 


10 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

allow, and as the train whirled along, it looked 

as though it might come toppling down any 
minute. 

“I almost wish Auntie Mogs had let me sleep 
up there,” she said to herself. “It might have 
been hot, but at least I could have kicked as 
much as I liked.” People are always sorry for 
themselves when they have to lie awake with no 
one to talk to, and Phyllis was no exception. 

“I do believe Janet could sleep in an airship,” 
she went on complaining, as she listened to her 
twin’s deep breathing. “She is always willing 
to talk at any old hour at home.” 

Her thoughts travelled back over the miles 
that they had come during the past few days, 
to the house in the city, and then, as thoughts 
often do, they turned to the future, and the 
future for the Page twins was Tom. 

“We’ll see him tomorrow.” Phyllis said the 
words over and over to herself, until the wheels 


ON THE WAY 


11 


of the train took up the refrain and chanted it 
as they thundered along. 

Phyllis and Janet Page were twins. The most 
remarkable twins in the world. They had not 
discovered each other until a year before this 
story opens, nor had they discovered their 
brother Tom. Now the united family, with 
Auntie Mogs Carter as the fairy godmother, 
were doing all in their power to make up for 
lost time. 

At present Tom was the center of their 
thoughts. They were going out to Arizona to 
spend the summer on his ranch. They had been 
preparing for weeks for the trip, and as Phyllis 
listened to the wheels shortening their journey 
with every rotation, all chance of sleep left her, 
and she stared wide-eyed into the darkness be- 
yond the window. 

“Pm thirsty,” she said at last. Very softly 
she slipped into her dressing gown that was ly- 


12 THE TWINS IN TH^E WEST 

ing at the foot of the berth, reached for her slip- 
pers, and without disturbing Janet, crawled 
softly into the corridor of the car. 

For an instant the long aisle of swaying cur- 
tains confused her, but after a minute’s hesita- 
tion she hurried to the dressing room and drank 
four paper cups-full of water. 

On the way back she noticed how dark the 
car was, and realized at the same time that she 
could distinctly hear several people breathing. 
The thought came to her that she was the only 
person in the whole car that was awake. She 
was not frightened, but the idea made her feel 
suddenly lonely, and she hurried on. Just as 
she reached her berth a man on the other side 
of the curtain nearest her gave a loud and a 
long snore. Phyllis bolted. Without looking 
particularly where she was going, she dived into 
a berth. 

Janet, do wake up,” she begged, but instead 


ON THE WAY 


13 


of Janet’s calm voice she heard a muffled scream, 
and was suddenly conscious that her head was 
pressed against several hard knotty little ob- 
jects, and her throat held in a strangle-hold. 

The knotty little objects were hair-curlers, 
and they bobbed in terror while their wearer 
continued to shriek. Phyllis understood her 
mistake in a flash, and did her best to reassure 
the rudely awakened occupant of the berth, but 
to no avail. Miss Weatherby, for that was the 
lady’s name, refused to be assured. She con- 
tinued to shriek, and her shrieks brought into 
the corridor almost every other passenger in the 
car. 

The porter switched on the light, and looked 
sleepily for the cause of the disturbance. Other 
curious heads protruded between the green cur- 
tains. 

“I am being murdered!” Miss Weatherby 
announced. 


14 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“But you’re not,” Phyllis denied hotly. “I 
made a mistake.” She pulled the curtains apart 
as she spoke, and her explanation included the 
onlookers. 

There was an amused chuckle, a disgusted 
grunt or two, and a sigh that denoted complete 
satisfaction from the father of a small boy, who 
during the four days of the trip, had been a 
marked object of Miss Weatherby’s disapproval, 
then all the spectators returned to their berths, 
with the exception of Auntie Mogs. She stayed 
behind to soothe Miss Weatherby, and to offer 
the apologies that Phyllis seemed incapable of 
making. 

When Phyllis slipped into her own bed, she 
found Janet with a corner of the pillow stuffed 
in her mouth, rolling from side to side in a 
paroxysm of mirth. 

Phyllis herself was almost in tears. 

“That horrible old lady,” she stormed, “I 


ON THE WAY 15 

didn’t know I was getting into her berth, I cer- 
tainly wouldn't have done such a thing on pur- 
pose. The very idea of her screaming that I was 
trying to murder her. She really almost put my 
eye out with her old hair-curlers.” 

A fresh burst of laughter from Janet. 

“Very well, laugh if you like, but if you dare 
to tell Tommy one word of this, I will tell him 
what you said in the diner the first night we 
were on board the train,” Phyllis threatened. 

Janet sat up and stopped laughing to look at 
her. “Phyl, if you ever dare — ” she began 

Phyllis sat up too, and they looked at one 
another, both pairs of golden-brown eyes glint- 
ing with .mischief. 

Phyllis switched off the light, and then with- 
out another word they both snuggled down and 
were soon asleep. 


16 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


The next morning the porter called them 
rather earlier than usual. 

“Phyl, do you realize that we’re really going 
to see Tommy tonight?” Janet demanded, wide 
awake in an instant. 

“No,” Phyllis denied emphatically. “The 
only thing I can think about is that dreadful 
woman last night. I dreamt I was murdering 
people in my sleep. I hate to think of facing 
her this morning.” 

“Oh, cheer up!” Janet laughed. “Everybody 
will have forgotten it by now.” 


CHAPTER II 


MISS WEATHERBY 

T HOUGH her words were reassuring, 
they were not however true, for when the 
twins joined Auntie Mogs and went into 
the diner for breakfast, all eyes were 
turned towards them. 

“I knew it,” Phyllis said in an agonized 
whisper. 

Auntie Mogs patted her hand as they seated 
themselves at the table. She was a dainty little 
lady with the sweetest voice in the world, and 
she laughed a soft rippling little laugh. “Dear 
child,” she said, “don’t look so unhappy.” 


17 


18 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“But they’re all thinking about last night, 
Auntie Mogs,” Phyllis protested. 

“Of course they are, but you foolish child, 
don’t you realize that they, none of them, know 
which of you it was.” 

Phyllis’ face broke into a broad grin. It was 
Janet’s turn to look worried. 

“I’m sure they think it was you, Jan,” she 
teased as she chipped off the top of her egg. 
“You have a guilty look.” 

“Then they’ll very soon be told differently,” 
Janet remarked with mock decision. “Don’t 
you think for one minute that I’m going to let 
these people believe that I go about murdering 
old ladies in their sleep.” 

“Oh, Janet!” protested Auntie Mogs. 

Janet could not reply, for at this moment Mr. 
Burke and his little boy stopped on their way 
to their table. 


MISS WEATHERBY 


19 


“Good morning, little ladies,” he began. 
There was a twinkle in his eye as he looked 
from one twin to the other. I hope you both 
slept well. 

“Thank you, we did,” Janet and Phyllis an- 
swered in chorus. 

“No ill effects from last night’s interruption?” 

“What interruption?” Phyllis asked inno- 
cently, while Janet blushed furiously. “I’m 
such a sound sleeper that I hardly ever wake 
up.” 

“Oh, Phyllis!” Auntie Mogs laughed in spite 
of herself, and Janet looked more uncomfortable 
than ever. 

Mr. Burke looked straight into her eyes that 
pleaded with him not to believe Phyllis, but 
he only smiled and, with a nod to Miss Carter, 
left them. 

Janet folded her napkin with precision. 


20* THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Phyllis Page,” she said, solemnly, “you are 
a wretch, but I’ll get even with you, see if I 
don’t.” 

“Just wait till we meet Miss Weatherby,” 
Phyllis replied airily. 

They met her sooner than they expected or 
hoped. Just at the narrowest part of the diner, 
Janet bumped into her, as the train gave a sud- 
den lurch. 

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she stammered. 
Miss Weatherby sailed majestically past her 
without a word. 

They found their berths made up when they 
regained the sleeper and the porter busy with 
their bags. 

“Better be getting your things together, 
Missy.” He was cross-eyed, so that the one 
word did duty for both twins, as they were both 
equally sure he was looking at the other. “We’ll 
be getting into Phoenix shortly.” 


MISS WEATHERBY 21 

Phyllis nodded smiling, and the next half 
hour was spent in collecting the numerous pos- 
sessions that accumulate so mysteriously during 
a trip. 

Auntie Mogs joined them when their packing 
was completed, and put her arm around Phyllis’ 
shoulder. 

“My dear,” she said, trying hard not to smile, 
“don’t you think it would be nice if you were 
to apologize to Miss Weatherby?” 

“Oh, Auntie Mogs,” Phyllis protested feebly, 
and she threw a horrified glance towards Miss 
Weatherby’s seat, a Literary Digest held rigidly 
in her jeweled hands hid her face from view. 
Then she gave her shoulders a little shrug. She 
knew there was no need of protesting to Auntie 
Mogs, for you always ended by doing exactly 
what she wanted you to. 

“Very well,” she said quietly, “I will.” 


22 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


But Miss Weatherby made an apology from 
Phyllis unnecessary. 

With a finality that bespoke grim determina- 
tion, she suddenly put down her magazine, and 
with a rustle of black silk crossed the car and 
stood scowling at Janet. 

“Young lady,” she began, without any open- 
ing preliminaries, “you owe me an apology. 
Your conduct last night was most reprehensible. 
You gave me a fright which, with my heart in 
the weak condition that it is in, might easily have 
proved disastrous. At your age I would never 
have presumed to have disturbed my elders, and 
in such a rude fashion, too.” 

Phyllis was about to protest, but Janet, her 
cheeks very red, silenced her. She jumped up 
and faced Miss Weatherby, her eyes flashing. 

“I do apologize,” she began firmly, “but I 
want you to understand that I did not do it on 
purpose.” 


MISS WEATHERBY 23 

She looked so very angry that even the august 
Miss Weatherby was taken aback. 

“Very well,” she said, striving to maintain 
her dignity, “I accept your apology.” And she 
retired not without audible sniffs to her own 
compartment. 

Janet sat down beside Phyllis, and her mouth 
set in a hard little line. 

“Jan,” Phyllis exclaimed, “whatever made 
you do such a thing? I’m going straight over 
and tell that horrid old woman that I did it 
myself.” 

“You’re going to do no such thing,” Janet 
insisted. There was so much determination in 
her voice that Phyllis, always the gentler of the 
two, subsided in a daze. 

“Really, Janet dear, it wasn’t necessary for 
you to take the blame,” Auntie Mogs said. 
“What made you do it?” 


24 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


Janet looked at her for a minute, and then 
she laughed. 

“To tell you the gospel truth, Auntie Mogs, 
I don't know,” she confessed. “I really believed 
for the minute that I had done it, and,” she 
added with a twinkle in her eye, “I wish to 
goodness I had.” 

Phyllis’ hand slipped out quickly and caught 
hers in a firm clasp of understanding. For the 
next few minutes they looked out of the window. 
The waste of brilliant yellow sand that had 
stretched out into limitless space on either side 
of the track was giving place to rude shacks and 
occasional trees as they neared Phoenix. 

Suddenly Phyllis gave an exclamation of 
horror. 

“Look!” and she pointed towards Miss 
Weatherby, who was vigorously tying her bon- 
net strings. “She is going to get off with us.” 


CHAPTER III 


ON THE WRONG TRACK 

T HE platform of the Phoenix station was 
broad and dusty and hot. Big men with 
wide Stetson hats sauntered about, but 
there were no porters in sight. Auntie 
Mogs, followed by the twins and the train 
porter, looked about her curiously. 

“You had better put the bags here,” she said, 
pointing to a bit of shade near the telegraph 
window. “I will go and find out about our 
train.” 

“Yas’um,” the porter agreed, “right here 111 


26 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


put ’em, but you all needn’t worry boutin’ your 
train. It’s the next one goin’ t’other direction. 
I reckon it ought to be along in a little while.” 

He left them smiling broadly. Auntie Mogs 
disappeared into the station, and the twins were 
left to their first impressions of Arizona. 

“It’s hot,” Janet said. 

“Scorching,” Phyllis agreed. 

They started about them trying awfully hard 
to like what they saw. 

“It’ll be better at Tom’s ranch,” Phyllis said 
hopefully, as though she had read Janet’s mind. 
But Janet only nodded. Her eyes had traveled 
to the other end of the platform, where a very 
large and fat Indian woman squatted regardless 
of the sun and hawked her wares. 

“The old darling!” Phyllis exclaimed as she 
followed Janet’s glance. “You stay here, Jan, 
I’m going to talk to her and buy one of those 
ducky baskets.” 


ON THE WRONG TRACK 27 

“All right,” Janet replied dubiously. “But 
she’ll probably scalp you. I’m not going to 
leave the bags.” 

Phyllis hurried off and Janet, let alone, con- 
tinued her interrupted survey. She saw nothing 
that made her feel at home. And her thoughts 
turned back to old Chester, with its huge green 
trees, and tidy village streets. A wave of home- 
sickness caught her. 

“I do hope Tom’s ranch won’t be like this,” 
she said aloud. 

“Don’t you worry, little lady,” a voice 
drawled from so far above her that Janet looked 
up, expecting to see some one calling from the 
height of a telegraph pole. Instead she looked 
into the grinning face of Rusty Savage. As she 
looked she continued to think of a telegraph 
pole, for Rusty resembled one as nearly as a 
human being could. He was almost seven feet 
tall, and very thin. His dusty trousers were 


28 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


tucked into high boots, and Janet could think 
of nothing but the giant of the circus. 

“Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot!” was all she could 
think of to*say. Rusty’s eyes were almost hidden 
beneath black brows. He closed one of them 
now to avoid the smoke that curled up from 
his cigarette. 

“My Aunt Jane once had a poll-parrot,” he 
drawled. 

“What was its name?” Janet inquired. 

“Julius Caesar,” Rusty replied gravely. 

Again Janet laughed, and this time Rusty 
smiled a slow twisted smile, that showed a row 
of strong white teeth. 

“You’re not alone?” he inquired, and Janet 
seeing a chance of playing a trick, shook her 
head and mumbled something about her Aunt. 

Phyllis had grown tired of the Indian 
woman’s “hows” and was coming back to them. 


ON THE WRONG TRACK 29 

Janet smiled her sweetest smile as she looked 
up at Rusty. 

“Would you mind awfully, watching my bags 
a minute?” she asked. 

“I’ll guard them with my life,” Rusty replied 
solemnly. And Janet, without waiting for an- 
other word, darted through the crowd, towards 
the approaching Phyllis. 

“Go and talk to him,” Janet whispered, point- 
ing to Rusty Savage, whose head was easily 
seen above the tops of the crowd. 

Phyllis nodded. There was no need of further 
explanation. The twins had played many tricks 
because of their remarkable likeness, and as 
Phyllis hurried towards the telegraph window 
and caught her first glance of the man who was 
guarding their luggage, she knew that this was 
going to be the best joke of all. 

“Back again,” she said, as she dropped down 
on a suitcase. “Thank you ever so much, for 


30 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


watching our things.” Rusty looked at her 
curiously. 

“Did you find your Aunt?” he inquired. 
Phyllis shook her head. 

“No, I’m afraid she’s lost,” 6he said mourn- 
fully. “I’ll hate being lost in Arizona.” 

“Don’t you worry ’bout being lost,” Rusty 
assured her protectingly. “Where you bound 
for, if I may be so bold as to ask?” 

“Loophole, to my brother’s ranch,” Phyllis 
told him. 

“Your brother being — ?” Rusty inquired. 

“Tom Page,” Phyllis explained. 

“Tom Page of the Twin Star Ranch?” Rusty 

whistled. “Well I’ll be ” The rest of his 

sentence was cut short by the sudden arrival of 
a train from the west, and at the same time 
Aunty Mogs, followed by a shambling creature 
in dirty corduroys, hurried out of the waiting 
room. 


ON THE WRONG TRACK 31 


An instant later Janet came unexpectedly 
from behind the pillar. The porter picked up 
the luggage. 

“Hurry along girls, here’s our train at last,” 
Auntie Mogs said. And she smiled at Rusty 
Savage; everyone did smile at Rusty Savage for 
one reason or another. Phyllis and Janet smiled, 
too, roguish mischievous little smiles. 

“Good-bye, and thank you,” they said both 
together, and a minute later they had boarded 
the train. 

They collapsed into a seat, and between gales 
of laughter they tried to explain to Auntie Mogs. 

“But you mustn’t talk to strange men, it’s 
dreadful,” Auntie Mogs protested. 

“I didn’t,” Janet denied, “he spoke to me.” 

“Anyway, he knows Tom,” Phyllis laughed. 

“Does he really,” Janet exclaimed. 

“Well he knows of him, anyway. You and 


32 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
Auntie Mogs interrupted us, just as we were 
talking about him.” 

“Too bad, but we did have to catch our train. 
How did he act when you went and talked to 
him?” 

“Just as if he’d only stopped a minute before.” 

“Then he didn’t suspect?” 

“Not until he saw you, for the second time.” 

“Do you think he guessed then?” 

“Sure of it.” 

“How?” 

“Because I saw his face when we grinned at 
him.” 

Auntie Mogs had been busy looking out of 
the window, and she drew the girls’ attention 
to the palm trees that lined the streets and later 
as they left the main part of the town to the 
Capital building shining white in the glaring 
sunshine. 

They were so intent on the landscape, that 


ON THE WRONG TRACK 33 


they did not hear the commotion at the door. 
But a minute later they turned in surprise to 
see Rusty Savage towering above them. 

“I’m begging your pardon, ma’am,” he began 
addressing Miss Carter. 

“Yes?” Auntie Mogs smiled up at him. 

Rusty rolled his hat brim around and around 
in his hands, and looked from Janet to Phyllis 
and back again. 

“I’m begging your pardon, ma’am,” he said 
again, “but one of these young ladies told me 
you was going to Loophole, headin’ for Tom 
Page’s ranch.” 

“Yes, we are,” Mis Carter nodded. 

“Well, you’re headin’ the wrong way,” Rusty 
managed to explain. “This train’s headin’ for 
Williams.” 

Miss Carter looked at him in amazement, and 
the twins said, “Oh.” 


34 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“I — I kinda thought I better tell you,” Rusty 
stammered. 

“But the man who carried your bags said it 
was the train for Loophole, and our train porter 
told us ours was the next train in. 

“Mebbe he did, but he was wrong, and as for 
Mouldy (they knew he was referring to the 
man in the old corduroys who had carried their 
bags), he’s likely to say anything.” 

“But what are we going to do?” Auntie Mogs 
asked in distress. 

Rusty grinned sheepishly. “Well, that’s why 
Tm here,” he offered in explanation. 

At this point in the conversation the conductor 
joined them. He was a little man with sharp 
features. Beside Rusty he looked ridiculous, 
but he spoke with a great air of authority. 

“I’ve just been talking with the engineer, Mr. 

Savage, and he says it’s impossible to stop at 
Hawks Corners,” he said. 


ON THE WRONG TRACK 33 

Rusty turned, squared his shoulders, and 
looked down at him. 

“I reckon I’ll have to talk to that engineer,” 
he replied, and there was so much finality in 
his tone, that the little conductor looked posi- 
tively frightened. 

“I — I don’t think that will do any good,” he 
stammered, and turned appealingly to Miss 
Carter. 

“You see, ma’am,” he began,” it’s this way — ,” 
but Rusty’s heavy hand on his shoulder inter- 
rupted him.” 

“I’ve already told you how it is, and now I 
guess I’ll have to tell you all over again.” 
Rusty’s voice sounded very tired and bored, as 
he went on explaining. “These folks want to go 
to Loophole and I’m going to see that they get 
there.” He turned to Auntie Mogs. “My ranch 
is just outside Hawks Corners and my sister can 
make you all comfortable. I can get Page on 


36 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
the wire and we’ll find some way of getting you 
to Loophole. If you go to Williams you’ll lose 
two days, besides being mighty uncomfortable 
in the hotel there. 

“But if the train doesn’t stop at your station,” 
Auntie Mogs protested feebly. 

Rusty Savage grinned. 

“Oh the train will stop all right,” he replied 
quietly. Without another word, he put on his 
hat and ambled out of the car, followed by the 
fuming little conductor. 

Auntie Mogs watched him go and then turned 
to the twins. 

“Well!” was all she could manage to say. 

As for Janet and Phyllis, they were both 
speechless. 


CHAPTER IV 
AT SAVAGE'S RANCH 

H ELLO, hello, is that you, Tom? Yes 
I can hear you.” Phyllis was shout- 
ing into the telephone receiver with 
Rusty Savage beside her. 

They were in the general store and post office 
at Hawks Corners, for Rusty, true to his word, 
had stopped the train. He did not tell them 
how he had persuaded the engineer, but they 
had learned that force was required. It had 
been an easy matter to locate Tom on the tele- 
phone, and as Auntie Mogs disliked telephones, 

37 


38 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


and Janet was afraid of them, Phyllis was doing 
the talking. 

“Hello,” she called again, and Tom’s voice, 
very far away, came back to her. 

“Where are you?” he demanded. 

“At Hawks Corners.” 

“How did you get there?” 

“We got on the wrong train.” 

Tom did not reply for a minute then — “Go 
to Savage’s ranch?” he called back. 

Phyllis laughed. “We’re with him now.” 

“Better let me talk to him.” Rusty had to 
almost double up like a jack knife, before his 
mouth was level with the receiver. He ex- 
plained everything to Tom and ended with the 
words, “Reckon they’ll be all right with me.” 
Then he laughed at something Tom said at the 
other end of the wire, hung up the receiver, 
straightened himself out, and turned to the 
others. 


AT SAVAGE’S RANCH 39 

“Tom will be over for you some time today,” 
he explained. “If you’ll come along with me, 
we’ll see if we can’t scare up some lunch at 
the ranch.” 

They left the store and found a dilapidated 
buck board waiting at the curb. It was hitched 
to two of the most beautiful horses that Janet 
had ever seen, and at sight of them she gave 
an exclamation of pleasure, and ran to their 
heads. 

“Oh you darlings I” she cried. 

The horses scenting a friend and admirer, 
nuzzled their soft noses against her shoulder. 

Rusty watched her grinning. 

“Like ’em?” he inquired. 

“Better than anything in die world,” Janet 
smiled back. 

Rusty nodded in perfect comprehension. 

“So do I,” he agreed. 

They climbed into the wagon gingerly, for its 


40 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


lack of paint and polish made it look as if it 
might fall into pieces any minute. 

Janet sat in the front seat with Rusty, and 
Phyllis and Auntie Mogs in the back. 

Rusty picked up the lines, and they started 
off at a breakneck speed, which did not slacken 
until they reached the Savage ranch house. 

Janet did not speak during the entire trip. 
She sat with her eyes fastened on the horses’ 
ears, her mouth open in an excited little smile, 
and her eyes shining. Rusty was a wonderful 
whip, but he realized that he had never exhib- 
ited his horsemanship to a more appreciative 
audience. 

On the back seat Auntie Mogs and Phyllis 
clung to each other in sheer fright, but they tried 
not to show the terror they felt as they rounded 
broad, sweeping turns in the road on two wheels. 

Great stretches of sand, golden under the sun, 
melted into the purple mountains in the distance. 


AT SAVAGE’S RANCH 41 
The table lands rose sharp cut just ahead of 
them, silhouetted against the brilliant blue of 
the sky. Great clumps of catsclaw and grease- 
wood grew close to the ground, and every now 
and then brilliant clumps of wild flowers gave 
a vivid touch of color. Giant cactus completed 
the design. And through it all they bowled 
along at breakneck speed. 

Phyllis felt as if she were having a terrible 
dream or playing the principle role in a thrill- 
ing moving picture drama. Auntie Mogs, when 
she wasn’t too frightened, enjoyed the vivid 
colors, but Janet never took her eyes off the 
beautiful pair of black horses. 

Rusty’s sister, Miss Agatha, as she was known 
throughout the countryside, came out on the 
porch as they drove up. She was a tremendous 
woman; tremendous in every way. Her hands 
and feet were like a man’s. Her mouth was 
wide, and always smiling. Her heavy iron grey 


42 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

hair was wound about her head in tight braids. 
A blue-and-white checked apron covered her 
ample frame. Only her eyes were small, the lids 
drawn into a squint, the result of the brilliant 
sunshine. She pounded rather than walked. 
She gave a curious impression that she was 
breathing in more of the air than was her share. 

“Here we are, Agatha,” Rusty called out as 
he brought the horses to a full stop beside the 
porch. Miss Agatha hurried down the steps. 
Her voice was loud and clear as she answered, 
“Well now, this is a rare treat. Come right in 
and we’ll have lunch in a minute.” 

Auntie Mogs would have thanked her grace- 
fully, but she boomed on. 

“It’s a shame they’re letting you get on the 
wrong train, but Ian’s sakes, one person’s loss is 
another’s gain. I haven’t been away from this 
ranch for nigh over a month, and I can tell you 
I’ve been good and tired of Rusty for company.” 


AT SAVAGE’S RANCH 


43 


Rusty had taken the horses back to the corral, 
so he was not there to defend himself, and Miss 
Agatha went on. 

“We’ve had a couple of awful sick colts, and 
I’ve had to tend them as if they were children.” 

“What splendid fun,” Janet exclaimed. 

Miss Agatha looked at her and then at Phyllis, 
as though she could not be sure whcih one had 
Spoken. She laughed a low rumbling laugh. 

“Lan’s sake!” she ejaculated, “you two are 
as much alike as peas in a pod, but come along 
in and rest awhile. Lunch will be ready in the 
shake of a lamb’s tail.” 

Auntie Mogs and Phyllis followed her into 
the house, but Janet slipped around the corner 
of the porch and joined Rusty as he put up the 
bars of the corral. 

“Good for you,” Rusty called over his shoul- 
der. “I thought you’d slip away.” 

Janet laughed. “I bet you don’t know which 


44 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
twin I am,” she laughed. 

“Oh, yes I do!” Rusty exclaimed. “You’re 
Janet, and you sat beside me on the drive over, 
and what’s more, you’re the first twin that talked 
to me at the station this morning.” 

“Now how do you know that?” Janet de- 
manded astonished. 

“Never you mind,” Rusty told her. “I know, 
that’s enough. I’ll never get you mixed up 
again.” 

“Don’t be too sure,” Janet teased. 

“Come right into lunch, you two,” Miss 
Agatha’s voice interrupted them from the back 
porch. 

Janet cast one last glance at the horses and 
followed her host indoors. 

The dining room of the ranch house was a 
long cool room with low rafted ceilings. A nar- 
row table ran almost the whole length of it. 
Straight-back chairs were ranged along the sides, 


AT SAVAGE’S RANCH 


45 


giving places for ten people. Plain green cur- 
tains hung at the window, and gave the room a 
cool, inviting look after the glare of the sun- 
shine. 

Auntie Mogs was already seated at one end of 
the table, and Miss Agatha bustled Janet into 
a chair beside them. Rusty took the head. Miss 
Agatha bumped from the kitchen into the table 
and back again, bringing in dish after dish of 
food, until the board fairly groaned, keeping up 
a cheery conversation meanwhile. 

“What time do you think Tom will get here?” 
Miss Carter inquired, during one of Miss 
Agatha’s trips to the kitchen. 

“Well, he was starting right away,” Rusty re- 
plied, “and I think he ought to get here about 
four o’clock.” 

“Then we can’t get back to Loophole to- 
night?” Miss Carter inquired. And Rusty 
shook his head. 


46 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“No indeed, you’ll all put up here for the 
night, and make an early start tomorrow morn- 
ing.” 

“It seems a shame to inconvenience you like 
this,” Auntie Mogs apologized. 

Miss Agatha heard her as she returned in 
the room. 

“Inconvenience, nonsense!” she exclaimed. 
“It’s a rare treat, I can tell you. I only wish it 
could happen oftener. We women get a bit 
lonesome sometimes. It’s all right for us old 
ones, for there’s a heap to do to keep us busy. 
But when I think of girls like Daisy Weaver I 
fairly boil.” 

As she spoke they left the table, and moved 
into the combined sitting room and office, to 
the right of the hall. There were comfortable 
wicker chairs and the blinds were closed to keep 
out the noonday heat. 


AT SAVAGE’S RANCH 47 
“Tell us about Daisy Weaver,” Phyllis said, 
as she snuggled into the window seat. Auntie 
Mogs and Janet waited attentively. Rusty had 
gone out to the barns. \ 

“Daisy Weaver is a fine girl, though how it 
happens with a father like hers, I can’t imagine. 
Old man Weaver is the crankiest, stingiest, 
hardest man in the world, I do believe, and how 
Daisy stands living out in that miserable shack 
year in and year out, I can’t see.” 

“Poor child,” Auntie Mogs said sympa- 
thetically. “Does she never have any com- 
pany?” 

“Company! Lan’s sakes, if you could see 
her father, you wouldn’t ask.” Miss Agatha re- 
plied with some heat: “Why old Weaver would 
just as soon throw a frying pan at your head if 
you came in there unexpected as not. 

“I wonder if Tommy knows her?” Phyllis 
said softly. It seemed impossible that he should, 


48 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
for Tom hated unkindness in any form, and 
Phyllis felt sure, had he known Daisy, he would 
have settled her father long before now. 

At her question, Miss Agatha looked at her 
curiously. 

“I chance a big guess that he does,” she said 
mysteriously. “They’ve been neighbors for nigh 
onto seven years.” 

Phyllis lifted her eyebrows in surprise,, and 
they were all silent for a few minutes. A little 
breeze had swung up. A few minutes later 
Rusty returned to the house, saying that if they 
wanted to go out to the barns with him, it was 
cool enough. 

J anet and Phyllis accepted his invitation, but 
Auntie Mogs insisted upon staying behind to 
help Miss Agatha. 

The girls spent a wonderful afternoon. Phyl- 
lis was a little timid at first, but Janet walked 
straight up to the horses, and talked to them in 
a language that they seemed to understand. 


AT SAVAGE'S RANCH 49 

Rusty saved the smallest colt to the end. It 
was a sickly looking thing, for its mother was 
dead, and only Miss Agatha's determination 
with the aid of a nursing bottle kept him alive. 

Janet stroked and petted him, while Rusty 
explained the nature of its ailments. 

“Poor darling,” she said. “Isn't he a darling, 
Phyl?” She looked up from the colt's mane, 
expecting to meet the eyes of her twin, but Phyl- 
lis was not there. She had heard the distant 
honk of an automobile horn, and at that moment 
she was flying down the road, towards a very 
dusty car, that was approaching at top speed. 

Tom had come. 


CHAPTER V 


WELCOME TO TWIN STAR RANCH 
ND here, my dears, is my modest 



abode.” 


Tom waved his hand to a distant 
clump of mesquite. Set in the midst 


of the green was a one-story building built in 
the shape of the letter “U.” A porch ran all 
around it, and the graden, gay with a perfusion 
of flowers, looked as though it might have come 
straight from a New England village. 

Tom stopped the car, on a rise of ground, 
where they could command a good view. The 


TWIN STAR RANCH 51 

Twin Star Ranch was fifty miles nearer the 
Mexican border than Mr. Savage’s place. The 
mountains crowded around it and in the queer, 
deceptive light of an Arizona noonday it looked 
as though you could put out your hand and 
touch them. It took Janet and - Phyllis many 
days to realize that the table lands were not in 
reality at the foot of the garden. 

“What do you think of it, Auntie Mogs?” 
Tom inquired, as they gazed in silence at the 
ranch below them. 

“Why, Tom, I’m surprised, I never expected 
anything so attractive,” Auntie Mogs replied 
truthfully. 

“Why not?” Tom demanded laughing. 

“I don’t know,” Auntie Mogs confessed, “but 
somehow I never expected hollyhocks in Ari- 
zona.” 

“There’s a lot of other people that didn’t ex- 
pect them either,” Tom laughed. “But I’ve 


52 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
found out that with patience and lots of water 
you can make anything grow on this blessed 
sand.” 

“You love it, don’t you?” Phyllis asked. 

Tom took a long, deep breath, and his eyes 
roved over the wonderful landscape. 

“I do, little sister,” he saidiseriously. “I think 
the love of it is in my blood.” 

Auntie Mogs laughed and shook her head. 

“I don’t think you could quite say that, 
Tommy.” 

She was thinking of the tidy village green, in 
old Chester, so like a Noah’s Ark toy village, 
and the contrast to this great sweep of country 
made her smile. 

“Won’t you ever want to leave it?” Phyllis 
asked a little wistfully.” 

“Never,” Tom replied decidedly. 

4 T should hope you wouldn’t,” Janet said 


TWIN STAR RANCH S3 

earnestly. “If you did, where would we spend 
our summers?” 

Tom started the car and laughed back over his 
shoulder. 

“Well, I don’t know about Auntie Mogs, and 
Phyllis, but you could stay with Rusty Savage 
and Miss Agatha,” he replied. 

“Nonsense,” Janet blushed a little. “Mr. 
Savage doesn’t know me from Phyllis.” 

“Oh, but he does!” Tom assured her. “He 
says it’s easy.” 

“I don’t see how,” Janet protested. 

“He talks about horses and then watches your 
eyes. He says Phyl looks indifferent, but that 
your eyes have the same adoring look that a 
setter pup has.” 

Auntie Mogs laughed heartily. Many people 
had found many ways of distinguishing between 
the twins, but this was the most novel of all. 

They rode for a while in silence. At the last 


54 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

turn of the road Auntie Mogs leaned over and 
touched Tom on his shoulder. One of his arms 
encircled Phyllis’ shoulder. 

“Tom, dear, do use both hands to drive,” she 
cautioned. “It makes me nervous to have you 
use only one.” 

For answer, Tom held both his hands over his 
head, then he turned around and laughed at his 
astonished aunt. 

“Bless your heart,” he said, “I haven’t been 
using any hands for the last .ten miles. Phyl’s 
been doing all the steering.” 

“I thought she had been pretty quiet,” Janet 
exclaimed. “It’s not like Phyl to keep still 
unless she’s busy.” 

“Don’t annoy the driver,” Phyllis called over 
Tom’s shoulder. “If you do I’ll ditch you.” 

Instead of ditching them, however, she made 
a neat turn and stopped just before the ranch 
house. At first sight the place looked deserted, 


TWIN STAR RANCH 55 

but Tom blew the horn, and a minute later grin- 
ning faces seemed to appear everywhere, and 
a blood-curdling whoop rent the air. 

“My family are a rather noisy lot,” Tom apol- 
ogized. “Come along and be introduced.” 

The six grinning cowboys gathered on the 
steps as they got out of the automobile. They 
were all dressed in the regulation outfit, leather 
chaps, knotted handkerchiefs, sombreros, and 
spurred boots. Tom singled out the smallest in 
the group. 

“This is Todd Beggs, foreman and general 
boss. Speak up, Beggar, and say something 
pretty.” 

He shook hands, first with Auntie Mogs and 
then with Janet and Phyllis. 

“Glad to know you,” he said, trying to over- 
come his bashfulness, and completely forgetting 
the speech of welcome that the boys had so care- 
fully drilled into him. “The Twin Star is sure 


56 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


glad to welcome you,” he added lamely. The 
rest of the men frowned at him, as Tom hur- 
riedly introduced them. 

There was Circus Bailey, a roly-poly, good- 
natured youngster of eighteen ; Screw Williams, 
so called because he resembled a corkscrew; 
English Kedgeree, an Englishman with delight- 
ful manners, and a funny little twinkle in his 
dark-blue eyes; Jim Martin, a big broad-chested 
man with a voice as soft as a girl’s and last, 
Sulky Prescott. 

Sulky had hung behind the others, dreading 
the introduction. He was a tall stoop-shoul- 
dered man, several years older than any of the 
others. His face was long and gaunt, and his 
grey eyes held in their depth the perpetual 
memory of a tragedy. He shook hands gravely, 
said a terse “ ’Do” in place of the regula- 
tion how do you do, and while the others stayed 
at the door he slipped quietly around the house 
and disappeared. 


TWIN STAR RANCH 57 

When Janet and Phyllis were at last alone in 
their room, they sank exhausted on their bed. 

“Oh, Jan, isn’t it just like a story!” Phyllis 
exclaimed. “I have a million things to say to 
you, and I don’t know where to begin.” 

“I know,” Janet agreed. “Doesn’t it seem 
ages since we got off that train.” 

The twins always talked things over. It was 
as if they could neither of them decide about 
anything without first getting the other’s opin- 
ion. This does not mean that they were alike, 
however, for they had both decided personali- 
ties, but whether they agreed or not, each always 
understood the other’s point of view. 

“Of course, they’re all darlings,” Phyllis said 
as she opened her suitcase, and prepared to un- 
pack it. “But which one do you like the best?” 

“Sulky Prescott,” Janet answered promptly, 
“and after him that nice English Kedgeree. 


Which one is your favorite?” 


58 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

“Oh, I like Todd Beggs. He’s promised to 
teach me to drive Tommy’s car.” 

Janet sniffed, “Can’t see what you want to 
drive a car for,” she said, “when you’ve got all 
Tom’s horses to ride.” 

“But I don’t know how to ride a horse.” 

“Neither do I.” 

“Well, then—?” 

“I’m going to learn.” 

Phyllis stoped in the midst of her unpacking, 
and joined Janet, who was looking out of the 
window at the garden. 

“Jan,” she said solemnly, a little tremble in 
her voice, “I’m about to make a terrible con- 
fession.” 

Janet laughed and put her arm around her. 

“Goodness me, what is it?” she inquired. 

“It’s no laughing matter,” Phyllis warned her. 
“I’m deadly serious.” 

“Well, let’s have it.” 


TWIN STAR RANCH 59 

Phyllis took a deep breath, and might almost 
be said to have squared her shoulders. 

“Jan,” she said, apparently with an heroic 
effort. “Jan, I am desperately afraid of horses, 
and if I ever have to get on the back of one, 
I shall die of terror.” 

“Well,” Janet squared her shoulders in turn. 
“That makes what I’ve got to say easier.” 

Phyllis looked at her, puzzled. “What?” 

“Yes, I,” Janet announced. “I’m just as 
scared of an automobile, as you are of horses.” 

“Jan!” Phyllis exclaimed, and they fell into 
each other’s arms and rocked with laughter. 

“Hello, is that the way we affect you?” Tom 
was standing under their window. 

“No, Tommy, it wasn’t you we were laughing 
at,” Janet replied. 

Tom was about to ask another question, but 
the strident notes of a bugle interrupted him. 

“Here that?” he inquired. “That’s Jose. He 


60 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
was a bugler in our army, and he insists upon 
calling us to chow that way.” 

“Who is Jose?” Janet inquired. 

“He’s chief cook and bottle washer of the 
outfit,” Tom explained, “and there’s one thing 
he hates above everything else, and that’s to have 
you late for lunch; so unless you want to get 
into his bad books, you better hustle up.” 

Janet *and Phyllis hastily brushed their hair, 
and joined Auntie Mogs in the living room. At 
the door of the dining room they paused. Six 
shining faces greeted them with uneasy grins, 
which helped to lessen their own embarrassment. 

“I say, stand up, you fellows,” muttered En- 
glish Kedgeree. 

There was a sudden scraping back of chairs, 
and then because it was all so ridiculous, every- 
body laughed. The ice was broken, and the 
twins, one on either side of Tom, began their 
first meal at the Twin Stars. 


CHAPTER VI 
JANET TAKES A RIDE 

W ELL, little sister of mine, what do 
you think of it all?” Tom inquired 
of Phyllis, whose eyes had been rov- 
ing disconstantly about the room for 
the past five minutes. 

Phyllis looked at him and smiled doubtfully. 
“It’s all awfully nice, Tommy,” she began, 
“but it’s sort of plain” 

Some of the boys laughed, but for the most 
part they looked worried. 

“What do you mean by plain?” Tom replied. 

61 


62 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


Phyllis’ eyebrows drew together in a puzzled 
little frown. She had definitely decided that 
the ranch house must be made more attractive, 
but she did not want to hurt Tom’s feelings by 
suggesting a change too quickly. 

“I mean it might be nicer if there were cur- 
tains at the window,” she suggested mildly. 

“Mr. Savage’s house has curtains,” Janet put 
in, quick to follow her twin’s lead. 

“Guess Miss Agatha is to blame for that,” 
Todd Beggs suggested. 

“I don’t see why you say blamed,” Phyllis 
protested. 

Tom laughed. “Curtains are all very well,” 
he said, “where there is a woman to look after 
them, but they get pretty draggled and dirty 
here, and Beggar’d be sure to burn holes in them 
with his cigarettes.” 

“Silly things, curtains,” Screw Williams 
growled. “So are rugs, always tripping you up 
and getting in the way of your spurs.” 


JANET TAKES A RIDE 63 

“What’s the u ;e of shutting out the sunlight?” 
Circus Bailey inquired. 

Phyllis looked up and down the table. A de- 
cided damper had been put on her scheme. It 
was English Kedgeree, that came to her rescue. 

“Oh, I say,” he began, “curtains are not half 
bad, they really r lake a room a lot more cheery.” 
He was thinking, perhaps, of the gay chintses in 
an English home left years ago. 

“Can’t say I mind them myself,” Jim Martin’s 
gentle voice joined in unexpectedly. 

Tom looked and the others looked at the two 
dissenters with disapproval. 

“Phyl has about made up her mind to interior 
decorate us,” Tom said. “Let’s put it to a popu- 
lar vote.” 

Phyllis looked around the table and smiled as 
her eyes rested on Todd Beggs. 

“Do say you want curtains, Mr. Beggs,” she 
pleaded. “Think how pretty the living room 


64 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


would look, with the soft green matting and 
bright-flowered chintz curtains.” 

Beggar looked at her in despair. He didn’t 
want curtains, and the thought of a rug made 
him turn cold, but Phyllis was too much for him. 
Her brown eyes pleaded and laughed at the 
same time, and Beggar had had a little sister 
once upon a time. 

“Of course, I think it will be nice,” he said 
bravely, for it took courage to face Screw Wil- 
liams’ eyes. 

“Victory,” Phyllis laughed. 

“No you don’t,” Tom protested, “that makes 
three on a side, and we haven’t heard from 
Sulky yet.” 

Phyllis looked across the table at Janet, her 
glance said as plain as words, “You ask him.” 

Janet looked down the table. Sulky’s head 
was bent over his dish, and not a flicker of his 
eyelash showed that he had heard one word that 
Tom had said. 


JANET TAKES A RIDE 65 

“Mr. Prescott,” Janet called, “you’re going 
to support us, aren’t you? Phyllis wants to 
make this house more attractive, and cheerful,” 
she went on to explain, taking for granted that 
he had not bothered to listen to the conversa- 
tion. “Your vote will decide. Think what fun 
we’ll having doing it, and please say you think 
it will be nice,” she ended with a smile, that 
was so full of confiding friendship, that Sulky 
Williams was for the first time within the mem- 
ory of a man thrown off his guard. He even 
smiled as he replied — 

“All right, little lady, tie all the pink bows 
on you want to, and I promise to like it.” Then 
because he was rather startled himself, he bent 
his head farther over his dish, and lapsed* into 
profound silence. 

The rest of the men flared at Kim In amaze- 
ment, and Tom leaned over and patted Janet’s 
hand. 


66 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

“I think Phyllis ought to let you choose the 
design,” he said chuckling. 

“Oh,” Janet replied airily, “as for that well 
be sure to choose the same one.” 

Luncheon was over, the men pushed back 
their chairs, and left the room to return to their 
several duties. 

“Wander about the place, and get acquainted,” 
Tom said as he left them, “but don’t go too far 
away.” 

“Why not?” Phyllis demanded. 

“Well, we’re near the border for one thing,” 
Tom replied seriously, “and although the Mexs 
have a pretty grave respect for us, they might 
not go so far as to include you. They’re rather 
crazy on the subject of rahsoms, you know, and 
you wouldn’t like to be kidnapped by a gang 
of bandits.” 

Phyllis stuttered, but Janet tossed her head in 
the air. 


JANET TAKES A RIDE 67 

“It might be rather a lark,” she said. 

She and Phyllis went back to their room, but 
Auntie Mogs detained Tom for a minute. 

“Do you think there is real danger, Tom?” 
she inquired. 

Tom slipped his arm around her waist. 

“Not a bit of it,” he said laughing, “but I 
thought that if I scared them straight off, they’d 
be careful in the future, and I wouldn’t like 
them crossing the border.” 

“There really are bandits, then?” 

“Quite a few.” 

“Would they venture on our side of the 
line?” 

Tom laughed. 

“They would not,” he replied decidedly, “not 
on the Twin Stars, at any rate. You see, when 
the government turned me down for war ser- 
vice, because of an enlarged heart, it was the 
silliest excuse they could think of — .” Tom 


68 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

spoke as though the government had exercised 
a strong imagination in his case, and indeed to 
look at him it would seem as if they must have, 
for he looked the picture of robust health. 

“They were kind enough to tell me that I 
would be of great service in patrolling the bor- 
der,’’ he went on in an aggrieved voice. “Well, 
I’ve patrolled it, and I used to get so mad think- 
ing of the good time I was missing, that I’m 
afraid I made it rather hot for the Mexicans. 
Anyway, they leave us alone, with flattering per- 
sistence.” 

“I’m glad of that,” Auntie Mogs said with a 
sigh of relief, but in her heart there lodged a 
tiny germ of uneasiness, and she determined to 
keep the twins in sight as much as possible. 

This proved to be a difficult task at the very 
outset, for when she went to find them, they were 
not in their rooms, nor yet on the veranda. 
Auntie Mogs returned to her unpacking. 


JANET TAKES A RIDE 69 

“They will hardly get into trouble the first 
day ? ” she said, and she went about her task with 
a serene smile. She had reckoned without 
knowledge of Janet. 

As soon as lunch was over, Janet had slipped 
out to the corral. Most of the men had disap- 
peared. She could see them loping along out 
towards the ranges, only Sulky Prescott re- 
mained. He was busy mending a piece of 
leather. 

“Mr. Prescott,” she began without preamble, 
“I want to learn to ride horseback. Will you 
teach me?” 

Sulky regarded her moodily. 

“Not much time,” he replied ungraciously, 
for he was not to be taken off his guard again. 

Janet,, however, was not abashed. 

“I don’t think it will take much time,” she 
said frankly. “I’m pretty sure I could ride, if 
I just had a chance. I can drive,” she added, 
by way of persuasion. 


70 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Humph,” Sulky grumbled. “Everybody 
thinks that at first.” 

“Well, trying is a good way to find out if 
you’re wrong, isn’t it?” 

Sulky looked up from his work, and their 
eyes met, his steely grey ones and her soft 
brown ones. For the second time that day he 
smiled. 

“Best way I know,” he agreed. “When do 
you want to start?” 

“Now,” Janet replied coolly. “Wait for me 
a jiffy.” She disappeared into the house. Phyl- 
lis was not in their room, and Auntie Mogs did 
not hear her, so she changed into her brand new 
riding habit without having to give any explana- 
tions and hurried back to Sulky. 

“Dude clothes,” he said discouragingly, when 
he saw her, and indeed, her spotless white linen 
riding habit and shining black boots looked out 
of place in this desolate country. 


JANET TAKES A RIDE 


71 


“Sorry,” she apologized, “but they’ll have to 
do until I can get better ones. 

Sulky looked at her again, this time in close 
scrutiny. 

“It’ll get dirty,” he warned her. 

“That doesn’t matter,” Janet laughed, “it’ll 
go into the tub.” 

As all his possible objections were ruled out, 
Sulky got up slowly, and entered the corral. He 
singled out a big black horse, and without a 
word of explanation saddled him with a heavy 
Mexican saddle, mounted him, and started to 
ride away. 

“You wait there,” he called back over his 
shoulder, and Janet nodded happily. 

He was not gone many minutes, before he 
returned leading a much smaller horse by a 
guide rope. 

“This here is the horse your brother wants 
you to ride. There is another like him up in 


72 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


the pasture. I brought the gentlest back for 
you,” he added as an afterthought. 

Janet covered her mouth with her hand, to 
hide the smile at the idea of saving the frisky 
one for Phyllis. 

She patted the horse, a dapple grey little ani- 
mal, with a winsome way of tossing his head. 

Sulky saddled him in silence, and Janet’s heart 
nearly stopped beating as she saw the last 
buckle slipped into place. 

“Here you are,” Sulky announced, and held 
one of the stirrups for her. 

Janet slipped her left foot into it, and vaulted 
lightly into the saddle, and gathered up the 
reins. She had read books, and dreamed dreams 
about horses all her life, and she was only actu- 
ally doing what she had imagined herself as 
doing countless times. 

But it is doubtful if any of her dreams came 
to such an abrupt ending as the actuality. She 



She had hardly gotten used to her seat before Sulky let go 
of the horse’s head, and then things began to happen. 

( Page 75.) 






JANET TAKES A RIDE 75 
had hardly gotten used to her seat before Sulky 
let go of the horse’s head, and then things began 
to happen. The horse tossed his head, jumped 
playfully to one side to avoid a shadow, and 
threw up his heels in pure joy of being alive. 

After that, Janet had only a hazy recollection 
of what happened. When next she opened her 
eyes, she was leaning up against th corral fence, 
and her horse was contentedly cropping the 
ground beside her. Sulky was looking down at 
her and laughing. Janet managed to smile. 

“He won’t do that again,” she said gamely, 
and Sulky’s grin widened. 


CHAPTER VII 

DAISY WEAVER 

J ANET did not make an empty threat 
when she said her horse would not throw 
her again. He never did, and by the end 
of their first week, she felt so at home in 
the saddle that it was hard to believe that she 
had not ridden all her life. 

On Saturday morning the men were all ex- 
ceptionally busy. Auntie Mogs and Phyllis had 
gone into the little town of Loophole with Tom, 
and Janet was alone at the ranch with Jose. She 
wandered all around the veranda and finally 
76 


DAISY WEAVER 77 

stopped at the kitchen door. Jose looked up 
from the batter he was mixing and grinned at 
her. 

“Those were awfully good pancakes we had 
this morning,” Janet began by way of greeting. 

Jose swelled visibly. 

“Not so bad,” he agreed. “Me, I make good 
waffles, too.” 

“Well they were certainly delicious,” Janet 
said, and then, having exhausted the topic, she 
asked idly — 

“Are there many Indians around here?” 

Jose scowled. “No good, Indians,” he grum- 
bled. “My grandfather, he Indian, but just 
the same I think they no good.” 

“What’s the matter with them,” Janet replied. 

Jose shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know, 
but Mexicans don’t like Indians, Yaqui Indians. 
Other tribes not so bad.” 


78 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Well what’s wrong with the Yaquis, why 
don’t you like them?” Janet persisted. 

Jose’s brow deepened into an even deeper 
scowl. 

“Don’t know,” he said again, “but if a Mexi- 
can sees a Yaqui, he chops.him into pieces, and 
if an Indian sees a Mexican — bah!” The little 
word was so expressive that Janet did not ask 
him to finish the sentence. She was not particu- 
larly interested, so she changed the subject by 
asking abruptly — 

“Jose, is the mail box very far away?” 

“Three miles. Straight as the crow flies,” he 
told her. 

“Guess I’ll ride up and see if there are any 
letters.” Janet strove to make her voice non- 
chalant, but Jose was not impressed. 

“Too hot,” was his only reply. 

Janet hurried out to the corral. 

“Come on, Booster, we’re going for a ride,” 
she said. 


DAISY WEAVER 79 

The twins had named their horses the first 
night of their arrival. Janet had called her’s 
Boost Star because he had so successfully boosted 
her on their first encounter. Star was for the 
ranch, and did duty, as she explained for a sur- 
name. The whole had been shortened to 
Booster. 

In like manner, Phyllis’ horse was christened 
Rooster, principally because his mournful neigh 
resembled the rooster’s early morning call. 
Phyllis had been persuaded to mount him on 
two occasions, while Beggar let her at a snail’s 
pace around the house. 

The pair stood in the corner of the corral, 
and Janet slipped the halter over Booster’s head 
without any difficulty. Saddling him was not so 
easy, and she finally had to call on Jose to help 
her put on his bit. Jose wiped his floury hands 
on his very dirty apron, adjusted the bit, and 
returned to the house without a word of remon- 


strance. 


80 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


Janet mounted, and rode away. It was a 
glorious morning, earth and sky seemed 
drenched in yellow sunshine. It was too early 
to be very hot, and Booster trotted along sniff- 
ing the air as though he enjoyed the perfume 
of the flower’s from Tom’s garden. 

It was not long before the mail boxes were 
in sight, at the crossroads, and Janet could eas- 
ily distinguish another horse and rider coming 
from the other direction, and about equally 
distant from the boxes with herself. 

“See that, Booster,” she said, pulling the 
horse’s ears. “Let’s race them to the mail box. 
They won’t know they’re being raced, but it will 
be just as much fun for us.” 

Booster picked up his ears, Janet touched his 
withers with her crop, and they were off down 
the broad dusty trail. The rider of the other 
horse must have known of the challenge, for the 
other horse gathered himself together, and it was 


DAISY WEAVER 81 

worth while to watch the two as they approached 
at a gallop to the mail boxes. 

When they were nearly there, Janet recog- 
nized that her opponent was a girl, and at the 
same time that she rode a horse as if she were 
one with him. 

They arrived at the mail boxes almost at the 
same moment, but the other girl had the advan- 
tage. They pulled up their horses and sat 
laughing at each other. 

“Phew!” Janet exclaimed, “that was a race. 
Did you know I was trying to beat you?” 

The other girl nodded. “I saw you talking 
to your horse,” she said, “so I suspected it meant 
a race. Shambles isn’t up to much on looks, but 
he can run.” 

As she spoke, she patted the ungainly roan 
she was riding affectionately. She was a pretty 
girl, of perhaps nineteen, with, a quantity of gold 


82 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


hair and sky-blue eyes. Janet liked her at once, 
and was surprised to hear her say — 

“I’m Daisy Weaver,” and then stop, blushing. 

Tm Janet Page, Tom Page’s sister,” Janet 
explained. “I heard Miss Agatha Savage talk- 
ing about you the other day. My twin and I 
are coming over to see you,” she added smiling. 

Daisy’s face flushed a deep red. 

“Oh no,” she breathed rather than spoke the 
words, and Janet hastened to change the sub- 
ject. 

“Isn’t it a heavenly day?” she inquired. “I 
feel as though I could ride straight into those 
mountains, especially that funny one with the 
flat top.” 

“A good day and a half’s ride,” Daisy replied 
dryly. 

“Poof!” Janet scoffed,” it would only take me 
twenty minutes.” 

They both took their mail from the boxes, and 


DAISY WEAVER 


83 


because they could neither of them think of any- 
thing more to say, they turned their horses’ heads 
towards their respective homes. 

“Good-bye,” Daisy said timidly. 

Janet held out her hand. 

“Good-bye,” she replied eagerly, “I hope I’m 
going to see you soon again.” 

But Daisy did not answer, and Janet rode 
home slowly, her brain busy with enumerable 
questions. 

Phyllis and Auntie Mogs, with Tom and 
English Kedgeree, were all standing on the 
veranda, as she rode into sight. They greeted 
her with waving arms, and English came into 
the road to hold Booster for her while she dis- 
mounted. 

“Janet, my dear child, where have you been?” 
Auntie Mogs demanded. 

“Oh, just for the mail,” Janet replied airily, 
and she handed her packet to English. 


84 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

Phyllis laughed and Tom grinned. 

“We’ve only been tearing our hair for the 
last ten minutes about you/’ Phyllis said. 
“Auntie Mogs had you kidnapped by a band 
of ferocious Mexicans, and I’m perfectly sure, 
though she didn’t say it, that she saw you in a 
cave, being devoured by wild animals.” 

“Not quite, Phyllis dear,” Auntie Mogs pro- 
tested. There was relief in her laughter. “But 
Janet dear, we were a little worried ; what made 
you go off all by yourself?” 

Janet had dismounted and was standing on 
the lower steps, just beneath them. 

“Well,” she began, looking at Tom, “you all 
went off and left me, and I had no one to talk 
to but Jose. We talked about flapjacks and 
Yaqui Indians, and then I decided to go for 
the mail.” 

“Who saddled your horse for you?” Tom in- 
quired. 


DAISY WEAVER 


85 


“Did it myself,” Janet told him with pardon- 
able pride. “That is, all but the bit, and Jose 
helped me with that.” 

English Kedgeree was examining the saddle 
girth. 

“Pretty fine, Miss Janet, I congratulate you. 
It’s a very neat job.” 

“Great child,” Tom said, patting her on the 
back.” I begin to have hopes that you may 
learn to ride some day,” he added provokingly. 

“Wait till Sulky hears about it,” English 
laughed. “He’ll be no end pleased.” 

The conversation was embarrassing to Janet, 
and she turned to Phyllis. 

“What did you do in town?” she asked. 

“Oh, we had a wonderful time,” Phyllis told 
her. 

“What doing?” 

“Buying things at the ducky old store. Jan, 
the man that runs it, is as big as a house.” 


86 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

“Which way?” 

“Around and up and down,” Phyllis replied, 
laughing, “and I told him about you, and he’s 
going to give me twelve lolly pops if he can’t 
tell us apart.” 

“And, Janet dear, we saw the dearest little 
Indian papoose,” Auntie Mogs said. “She was 
strapped to her mother’s pack, and she had the 
brightest black eyes, they fairly danced.” 

“How adorable!” Janet exclaimed. 

“She let Phyllis play with her, but she scowled 
if any of the rest of us went near her.” 

“And when I wriggled my finger at her, she 
yelled like anything,” Tom confessed. 

“Well, but Tommy, your hand is so huge!” 
Phyllis protested, “the poor lamb thought you 
were going to smother her. No wonder she 
yelled.” 

“What else did you do?” Janet inquired. 

“Well, I drove the car nearly all the way 


DAISY WEAVER 


87 


home,” Phyllis said, after sufficient pause to 
give weight to such an important announcement. 

“Not ran it, but steered it, you mean, don’t 
you?” Janet exclaimed. 

“Indeed I don’t,” Phyllis protested indig- 
nantly. “I mean drove it. I managed the 
brakes, the gears, the clutch, and everything.” 

“In fact,” Tom laughed, “Phyl will soon be 
bored with an automobile, and the first thing 
you know, she’ll be driving a locomotive.” 

There was a pause after they had finished 
laughing. Suddenly Janet said — 

“Oh, Tom, tell me, who is Daisy Weaver?” 

Tom jumped, as though he had been shot, and 
the quoit that he had been carrying in his right 
hand fell to the floor. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE TWINS MAKE A PLAN 

W ELL, it’s the most mysterious thing 
I ever heard of,” Phyllis said, as she 
sat on the edge of her bed, while Janet 
gazed moodily out of the window. 
“It might have been an accident,” Janet sug- 
gested doubtfully. 

“Accident? Nonsense, he was the color of a 
brick.” 

“And Mr. Kedgeree looked awfully startled, 
too.” 


Phyllis sighed in exasperation. 


THE TWINS MAKE A PLAN 89 


“You say she looks like a nice girl?” 

“A perfect peach/’ Janet replied warmly. 
“She looks a little tiny bit like Daphne Hillis, 
but, of course, she’s not quite as pretty as 
Daphne.” 

Phyllis laughed. 

“I don’t suppose any one is quite as pretty as 
Daphne, but don’t lets get talking about her, 
for we’ll never settle this knotty problem.” 

Janet wheeled away from the window. 

“I don’t know what’s to be done,” she said. 
“Tom changed the subject so abruptly, I 
wouldn’t dare ask him again.” 

“Oh, leave that for me,” Phyllis replied with 
assurance. 

The twins always divided up the small adven- 
tures of life. To Janet fell the things that took 
physical courage, while Phyllis managed the 
difficult interviews. She had a charm that was 
difficult to deny, and where Janet trembled be- 


90 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
fore a harsh word, Phyllis smiled sweetly, and 
walked off with her own way. Sometimes they 
changed places, and they always manage&to fill 
the other’s role with credit, but as a general 
thing they preferred to stick to their own chosen 
ways. 

Janet did not ask Phyllis what she meant to 
do, but she watched her leave her room with 
perfect confidence, that when she returned she 
would have the answer. 

Phyllis, meanwhile, wandered into Auntie 
Mog’s room, and sank down on the window 
seat. Auntie Mogs was putting away her pur- 
chases of the morning. She was quick to notice 
Phyllis’ puzzled frown. 

“What’s the matter, dear?” she inquired. 

“Tommy,” Phyllis replied shortly. 

“Well, what’s the matter with Tommy?” 
Auntie Mogs inquired. 

She knew what Phyllis was going to say, and 


THE TWINS MAKE A PLAN 91 
she was ready to answer her, for Tommy had 
followed her into her room from the veranda, 
and given her the explanation of the curious 
conduct. Phyllis looked out of the window, and 
then asked abruptly — 

“What made Tommy drop his quoit and turn 
red when Janet spoke of Daisy Weaver?” 

Auntie Mogs laughed lightly, as she replied. 

“Poor Tommy,” she said. “My dear, I don’t 
think that Daisy Weaver was very nice to Tom, 
and I’m sure her old father was very rude. He 
is very unkind to Daisy; you remember what 
Miss Agatha' said.” Phyllis nodded. 

“But what about Tommy?” she inquired. 

“Tom went over^to see Daisy. He used to 
see her very often, but on this particular day 
she asked him to go home and never to come 
near her again. Of course, Tom left at once, 
but I think his feelings were very much hurt. 
He has never been back, of course, and you can 


92 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
understand, my dear, that he doesn’t like to hear 
her talked about.” 

“Hum,” Phyllis said slowly. She looked out 
of the window, and watched the bees circling 
above thet^flowers. 

Auntie Mogs did not interrupt her, and after 
a while she slipped through the long window 
into the garden, and went back to Janet. 

“Feel like making a formal call this after- 
noon?” she inquired casually. 

Janet raised one eyebrow. “Daisy?” she in- 
quired. 

Phyllis nodded, took down her riding habit 
from the peg on the door, and began industri- 
ously sewing a button on the front of the coat. 

“We may get a frying pan thrown at our 
heads,” she remarked a few minutes later. 

Janet laughed. “That’s all right,” she said. 
“If you’ll take care of the old gentleman, when 
he talks, I’ll manage him when he starts throw- 
ing pans about.” 


THE TWINS MAKE A PLAN 93 


”“How far is it to her ranch?” Phyllis in- 
quired. 

“Not more than five miles from the end of 
the pasture,” Janet told her. 

Phyllis looked down despairingly at the habit 
in her lap. 

“I won’t be able to walk for a week,” she said 
mournfully, and Rooster will* probably throw 
me as soon as we are outside of the house, but 
we’ll go just the same.” 

“Most men haven’t very much sense,” she said 
later. “Tommy seems to have less than his 
share.” 

Before the bugle sounded, she had explained 
to Janet, and they had settled on a campaign. 
During luncheon Phyllis opened it. 

“Beggar” — she had long since discarded the 
formal Mr. Beggs — “in all the western stories 
I’ve ever read, they always have barbecues. 


94 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
Why can’t we have one?” 

Beggar laughed, and looked up and down the 
table. 

“Boys,” he said, “do you hear that? Miss 
Phyllis wants a barbecue.” 

“It can’t be done,” Circus Bailey announced. 
“But we might stage a picnic.” 

“Loophole is giving a huge one on the fourth 
of July,” Tom interrupted. “Some of the men 
were talking to me about it this morning. I 
told them we’d all be there sure.” 

“But, Tommy, that’s so far away,” Janet pro- 
tested. 

“Can’t we have one, Just for ourselves some- 
times soon? Up in that nice place you were tell- 
ing me about Beggar, where the rock is split in 
the mesa.” 

The boys laughed, but Janet and Auntie Mogs 
looked inquiringly at Phyllis. 

“Mesa means table land,” she explained, “and 


THE TWINS MAKE A PLAN 95 

it sounds so much more important and ro- 
mantic.” 

“What cracked the mesa?” Tom teased. 

But Phyllis refused to be flustered in spite 
of the many laughing eyes turned upon her. 

“Oh, it’s a place* in the rocks, like a gorge or 
something, and it’s quite wide, and a ducky place 
to have a picnic.” 

“You win,” Beggar said gravely. “The Twin 
Stars go on a picnic to the Ducky Gorge, as 
soon as it can possibly be arranged.” 

“Oh, Beggar, that’s awfully nice of you,” 
Phyllis exclaimed gratefully, “and you’ll let me 
drive the car with all the provisions for it, won’t 
you? Now don’t you think we could have it 
on Sunday?” 

Beggar looked around the table. Most of the 
outfit went into Loophole on Sunday, and he 
expected to see consternation writ large on their 
faces. Instead, he was met with broad grins. 


96 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
Such was the change wrought at the Twin Stars 
by the advent of twins. 

Luncheon over, the twins hurried to their 
rooms and put on their riding habits. 

“Tommy will never let you go all that way 
alone with me,” Janet protested, as they finished 
dressing. 

“Tommy isn’t going to see me go,” Phyllis 
replied. “He is riding into Loophole on some 
business of irrigation, and he won’t be back until 
dinner time. English Kedgeree is going with 
him.” 

As if to confirm her words, they heard the 
horses galloping past the house. Phyllis threw 
a kiss after the sound. 

“Tommy,” she said solemnly, “you’ll never know 
how much I love you, to be willing to ride five 
miles for your sake.” 

“Ten,” Janet corrected her unfeelingly, and 
Phyllis groaned. 


THE TWINS MAKE A PLAN 97 

“Go and see if you can find someone to har- 
ness the horses, I’ll go and tell Auntie Mogs.” 

Janet slipped out to the corral, and found 
Sulky Prescott just as he was about to leave. 

“Oh Sulky — I beg your pardon, I mean Mr. 
Prescott,” she stammered. 

Sulky smiled down at her. “No need to be 
sorry, little lady,” he said. “Sulky is a pretty 
bad nickname, but I’d a heap rather have you 
call me that than Mr. Prescott.” 

“Oh, thank you ever so much,” Janet said 
shyly. “Tell me what your real name is.” 

“Peter,” Sulky answered shortly. 

“Oh that’s the name of my very best friend, 
Peter Gibbs.” 

“You don’t mean Peter Gibbs, the engineer’s 
son,” Sulky demanded. 

“Indeed, I do. He’s the very best friend I 
have in all the world,” Janet told him. “Do 
you know him?” 


98 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


Sulky laughed a harsh cracking sound, as if 
laughter was difficult for him. 

“Yes, I knew him before he died. One 
of the whitest men that ever lived. Peter was 
just a young one of ten then, and we were great 
friends. He used to say he was named for me, 
and he always called me Uncle Pete.” 

Janet swung herself up on one of the feed 
boxes, and clasped her hands around her knees. 
She had only known Peter Gibbs for a year, but 
she had found him when she most needed a 
friend. This was before the days when she 
knew she had a twin, and the strongest friend- 
ship existed between the two. She told Sulky 
about their curious meeting, and described some 
of the good times they had together. She would 
have talked until sundown, if Phyllis had not 
appeared at the doorway. When she heard the 
news, she had to tell Sulky how much she liked 
Peter, too, so that it was well after three o’clock 
before the horses were saddled, and they were 
on their way to call on Daisy Weaver. 


CHAPTER IX 

A FORMAL CALL 

S TICK your knees into the horse and hold 
on that way,” Janet admonished as she 
trotted easily besides Phyllis, who was 
having a terrible time not to slip off 
her saddle, “and don’t clutch that pummel so.” 

“That’s all very well for you, Janet Page,” 
Phyllis replied miserably. “You’re not fright- 
ened to death every minute, and I am. Every 
time Rooster picks up his ears, I think he’s 
making up his mind to throw me, so, of course, 
I hang on to the saddle.” 


99 


100 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Well, you mustn’t do it,” Janet insisted, 
“you’ll never learn to ride if you do.” 

“Don’t want to learn to ride,” Phyllis replied 
almost in tears. “Why, oh why, didn’t we come 
in an automobile.” 

Janet did not reply at once. She looked ahead 
towards a clump of trees in the distance. They 
were few and straggling, but they helped to 
shelter the miserable little hut with a lean-to 
kitchen which jutted out at an ugly angle to 
one side. 

“Cheer up,” she said, “we’re nearly there.” 

Phyllis looked, too. “What a miserable old 
house!” she exclaimed. “Think how horrible 
it must be to live there.” Jan, we simply must 
make friends with that girl, and do something 
for her.” 

Janet nodded seriously. “She’d like to be 
friends well enough, but will her father let her, 
for, in spite of all his meanness, she seems to 
love him.” 


A FORMAL CALL 101 

“Afraid of him is more like it,” Phyllis in- 
sisted. 

“But she sent Tommy away because he criti- 
cized him.” 

“I don’t believe it. Her father was probably 
standing in the house with a shotgun leveled 
at Tommy’s head, and he probably made her say 
what she did.” 

“Oh, Phyl!” Janet laughed, “you talk like a 
movie.” 

“Just the same,” Phyllis insisted stubbornly, 
“you’ll find I’m not far from right.” 

“Whoever put such an idea into your head?” 

“Well, nobody would send Tommy away 
unless they had to.” 

“Perhaps you’re right.” 

“Of course, I am, there you are.” 

“No, here we are,” Janet laughed, “and here 


comes papa to meet us. 


102 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

An old man with a thin wizened face, set-in 
dirty grey whiskers and tangled hair, had come 
forward to meet them. He had been cleaning 
his gun, and he carried it now menacingly, as 
he shambled towards the road. 

“What d’you want?” he snarled. “If you’re 
Tom Page’s sisters, you can get off my property, 
or I’ll shoot you.” 

“What a nice old gentleman,” Janet whis- 
pered under her breath, and Phyllis laughed. 

They did not stop their horses, but rode right 
up to where Mr. Weaver was standing, and 
Phyllis leaned down in her saddle, and held out 
her small gauntleted hand. 

“How do you do, Mr. Weaver?” she said in 
her sweetest manner, completely ignoring his 
greeting. “We thought we would call on you. 
What a nice little house you have !” 

Now, the shack had always been Mr. 
Weaver’s sore point. Everybody he met told 



“What d’you want?” he snarled. “If you’re Tom Page’s 
sisters you can get off my property.” 

( Page 105.) 

















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A FORMAL CALL 105 

him it was a disgrace, and that for Daisy’s sake 
he ought to build a better one, when he had 
lived in it all his life, and it was one of the 
few things for which he had any real affection. 

Phyllis with her usual good luck happened 
to be the first person that had ever said any- 
thing nice about it, and Mr. Weaver looked at 
her in surprise. 

“What are you saying that for, if you don’t 
mean it,” he whined. 

“But I do mean it.” Phyllis was quick to 
follow up her advantage. “I think it’s an aw- 
fully nice place, and it looks so comfy.” 

Mr. Weaver favored her with a long stare. 

“Humph,” he said grudgingly, “you got more 
sense than your brother then.” He turned sud- 
denly to Janet. At the sight of the remarkable 
likeness, a baffled expression came over his face, 
and the lids fluttered down over the pale blood- 
shot blue eyes. 


106 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Sim’s plying tricks on me,” he grumbled. 

Phyllis was off her horse in a second, and 
standing close beside him. 

“No it’s not,” she assured him. “We’re twins. 
Open your eyes, and you will see that one is on 
a horse, and the other one is on the ground. 
I bet you can’t tell us apart,” she added chuck- 
ling softly. 

Mr. Weaver opened his eyes, and glared at 
them both. 

“Don’t want to know either of you. Get out 
of here. You’re Tom Page’s sisters, and that’s 
enough for me. Tom Page is no good, I tell 
you,” he growled with a return to his previous 
manner. 

Phyllis watched him. He reminded her of a 
naughty sullen child, who had been kept up past 
his bed time. 

But Janet had no such feeling of tolerance. 


A FORMAL CALL 107 

She jumped off her horse, and faced him, her 
cheeks scarlet. 

“Don’t you talk that way about my brother, 
you horrible old man.” She stamped her foot 
as she spoke. “He is good, and you know it.” 

Mr. Weaver had never in all his long life 
been stamped at by a woman — in fact, he had 
always managed to keep them in a state of sub- 
jection. Even Daisy cringed when he raised his 
voice. 

“I tell you he is no good,” he stormed. 

“He is good,” Janet insisted, without a trace 
of anger in her voice, but with a calm determina- 
tion that penetrated even Mr. Weaver’s fuddled 
brain. 

“Where’s Daisy?” Phyllis came to the rescue. 
“We really came over to call on her, you know. 
Can’t we go in your nice little house and rest a 
while — I’m just dead from this long ride.” 

Without waiting for him to give them his 


108 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
permission, she walked up the two steps that 
lead to the door, and pushed it open gently. She 
saw a single room, with a big stove in one cor- 
ner. There were chairs that had once been good, 
but were now dilapidated, the stuffing coming 
out of them for the most part, or a leg or an arm 
off. There were no carpets on the floor, and no 
curtains at the windows, but the place was im- 
maculately clean. As Phyllis entered, she saw 
Daisy standing in the center of the room, her 
hands pressed to her temples, and her eyes 

closed tight. She was wearing a dark-blue print 
dress, that set off the beauty of her golden hair. 

“Hello, Miss Weaver,” Phyllis began. “Janet 
and I have come over to call on you.” 

Daisy’s hands dropped to her side, and her 
eyes opened with a flash. 

“Oh,” she said, blushing painfully, “you 
shouldn’t have come.” 

“Oh, but we wanted to,” Phyllis assured her, 


A FORMAL CALL 


109 


“and the ride wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought 
it would be. I wouldn’t have minded it at all, 
if my horse hadn’t bumped so.” 

Daisy smiled a shy little smile, and just then 
Janet came in, followed by Mr. Weaver. 

Janet said how do you do to Daisy, and Phyllis 
called gayly to Mr. Weaver. 

“Come along, and see if you can tell us apart.” 

“Shucks,” Mr. Weaver replied inelegantly. 

“Oh, you’re afraid you can’t. I knew you 
couldn’t.” 

“Can, too.” Mr. Weaver was more than ever 
like the bad child. 

“Well, then try, I dare you to.” 

“Won’t do it.” 

“Scared.” 

“No such thing.” Mr. Weaver’s pride was 
touched, and he scowled furiously. But Phyllis 
only laughed at him, while Daisy trembled 
beside Janet. 


110 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Then do it,” she challenged. 

“I’ll do it to keep you still.” Mr. Weaver 
gave in at last. He was secretly pleased, and a 
horrible grin played around the corners of his 
toothless mouth. 

Phyllis made him turn around, while she and 
Janet changed places. When he faced them 
again, he stared blinking. The smile on Phyllis’ 
lips, and the flash of anger that was still in 
Janet’s eyes, would have been plain signals to 
the most unobserving, and Mr. Weaver was a 
very sly old fox. 

“You’re the nice one,” he said, pointing to 
Phyllis, “and you’re the sassy one,” he scowled 
at Janet. 

“Good for you,” Phyllis exclaimed. “How 
awfully clever of you. Hardly any of our 
friends can tell us apart, and to think you did 
the very first time you met us!” 

“Shucks,” Mr. Weaver said again, but this 


A FORMAL CALL 111 

time there was a note of satisfaction in his 
quarrelsome voice. 

“Why, it’s five o’clock already!” Janet ex- 
claimed, looking at the big alarm clock over 
the fireplace. “We must go back, Phyl.” She 
turned to Daisy — 

“Can’t you ride as far as the mail boxes with 
us?” she asked. “It’s about time for the after- 
noon mail.” 

Daisy looked at her father with so much fear 
in the expression of her eyes, that Phyllis 
wanted to shake her. She had never been afraid 
of anyone in all her life. Janet, on the other 
hand, recognized something of what she was 
going through, for she had been afraid of her 
own grandmother, to a far lesser degree, of 
course, but still she understood. 

Mr. Weaver grunted approval, but only be 
cause he was really expecting some mail, and 
the three set off at a leisurely place, Phyllis rid- 
ing in the middle. 


112 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


Daisy did not have much to say, but she suc- 
ceeded in making the twins like her, and when 
she rode back to her father, in the lonely shack, 
she had a warm glow around her heart, and a 
feeling that things in the future would not be so 
drearily lonely as they had been in the past. 

Such had the confidence of those who were 
“taken up” by the twins. Sulky Prescott had 
something of the same feeling as he rubbed down 
his horse that night. 


CHAPTER X 


MORE PLANS 

T HEN weTe really going to have a pic- 
nic on Sunday?” Janet asked the next 
morning at breakfast, and the boys all 
solemnly nodded. 

“Oh, by the way, Tommy, do you care if we 
ask Daisy Weaver to go along, too,” Phyllis 
asked, as though inviting Daisy Weaver to join 
them at their picnic was the most natural thing 
in the world. 

Tom looked at her sharply, and most of the 
boys bent their heads down over their plates. 


114 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“You don’t know Daisy Weaver,” Tom said 
almost gruffly. 

“Oh, but indeed we do!” Phyllis assured him. 

“When did you meet her?” Tom demanded. 

“We were out riding yesterday afternoon, and 
we stopped in at their house. Mr. Weaver was 
there, and we had quite a lot of fun.” 

Every head'was raised, and one concentrated 
incredulous glance was cast at Phyllis. 

“You stopped at the Weaver’s?” Tom in- 
quired, trying to keep his voice calm. 

Phyllis nodded. 

“Do you know that old man Weaver threat- 
ened to kill me on sight, if I stepped on his 
property again?” 

This time, Janet laughed. 

“Well, he threatened to kill us, too, before 
Phyl got off her horse and explained that we’d 
only come for a social call.” 

“Oh, I say — !” English Kedgeree’s face 


MORE PLANS 115 

showed consternation. “He might have done 
it, you know.” 

“Oh, he looked quite equal to it,” Janet 
nodded. “He had his gun and everything, but 
Phyllis teased him a little, and when we left 
he was quite cheerful.” 

“He’s rather a nice old man,” said Phyllis tak- 
ing up the story at this point. “He told us apart, 
which is really clever for a man as blind as 
he is. Daisy went as far back as the mail boxes 
with us. She’s a darling, and Jan and I want to 
see if we can’t make her feel a little less lonely 
while we’re here.” 

“Quite right, too, my dears,” Auntie Mogs 
spoke up. Poor child, she must have a very un- 
happy life. Did she never go to school, 
Tommy?” she asked, turning to her nephew. 

“Indeed, she did,” Tom spoke with more heat 
than the occasion required. “Daisy Weaver has 
one of the finest minds I’ve ever known. She 


116 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


went through our school at Loophole, and she 
was just going to boarding school, when Mrs. 
Weaver died. After that the old man began to 
have his fits of rage, and, of course, Daisy has 
never gotten away from him since.” 

“Oh, of course, he’s as mad as a hatter,” 
Phyllis remarked. “I wanted to spank him and 
put him to bed. Daisy seems quite afraid of 
him.” 

“It’s different when you live with a person 
like that, and have lived with him all your life,” 
Janet spoke from the depth of her experience. 

“But hasn’t Daisy any aunts or cousins?” 
Auntie Mogs persisted. 

“Oh, yes,” Tom answered wearily, but it’s the 
usual story. The mother married against her 
parent’s wishes, and they wouldn’t have any- 
thing to do with her. I wrote to an aunt of 
hers, her mother’s sister, somebody named 
Weatherby, after Mrs. Weaver died. She never 
answered my letter.” 


MORE PLANS 


117 


“She’s sure to be horrid, if her name is 
Weatherby,” Phyllis announced, and Janet and 
Auntie Mogs laughed heartily. 

“What’s the joke?” Jim Martin asked in his 
gentle voice. 

But the twins shook their heads. 

“Don’t you dare,” said Phyllis. 

“I won’t if you won’t,” said Janet. 

Daisy for the time being was forgotten, and 
the men combined their efforts to making the 
twins tell them the joke, but they failed, and 
Auntie Mogs, when appealed to, only shook her 
head and smiled. 

The real excitement of the day began, when 
Tommy made the remark at luncheon that they 
needed some extra pack burros. He spoke to 
Sulky, and Janet picked up her ears, when she 
heard English Kedgeree say — 

“I haven’t anything to do this afternoon, 
Sulky. I’ll help you weed out a few. There’s 


118 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


a flock of them up in the hills, back of the south 
pasture.” 

Janet waited until Sulky was alone in the cor- 
ral. 

“What did English mean by saying he’d help 
you get some burros, Uncle Pete?” she asked, 
adopting quite naturally Peter’s nickname for 
Sulky. 

“Why, they run wild up in the hills,” Sulky 
explained. “They’re the hardest things in the 
world to catch, for they are fleeter on their feet 
than deers, but when you catch them there 
just isn’t any animal more slow and worthless. 
They spend the rest of their life in getting even 
with you, and I’ll tell you, they sure do make 
you wish you’d let them alone.” 

“It must be lots of fun chasing them,” Janet 
said wistfully. “I wish I could go with you,” 
she added. 

“Don’t see why you can’t,” Sulky answered 
promptly. “We’ll talk to Tom about it.” 


MORE PLANS 119 

Tom was passing the corral on horseback, and 
Sulky hailed him. 

“Any objections to my taking the youngster 
along when we go after the burros?” he called. 

“Not if she won’t bother you,” Tom answered. 
“Just be sure not to lose her.” Sulky nodded, 
and without more adieu, went to the corral to 
catch Booster. 

“Better tell Auntie Mogs, Jan,” Tom called 
back over his shoulder as he went away. 

Janet went into the house, but she could not 
find Phyllis nor Auntie Mogs anywhere. She 
heard the chug-chug of the automobile, and 
ran to the dining room window just in time to 
see Phyllis at the wheel with Beggar beside her, 
and Auntie Mogs in the back seat. She found 
a note in her room, scrawled in Phyllis’ hand- 
writing. She read : 

Dear Jan: 

Thought I’d clear the coast, for I 


120 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


could see burros in your eye at lunch. 
Don’t get killed, and bring me back one 
of the smallest for a pet. 

I’m going to drive the car at forty 
today, while Beggar shows Auntie 
Mogs the landscape. 

Good Luck, 

Phyl. 

Janet read the note and laughed softly to her- 
self. 

“Good old Phyl,” she said. “I might have 
known she would have guessed what was going 
on inside of my head. She always does. Thank 
goodness I’ve got a twin.” This last was almost 
a prayer of thanksgiving. Janet and Phyllis 
caught themselves saying it many times during 
the day. 


CHAPTER XI 
TRAILING THE BURROS 

S HE snatched up her hat, and hurried back 
to the corral, to find Sulky and English 
Kedgeree, waiting for her. She mounted 

Booster, and they trotted off towards 
the hills. 

They were riding south, and after a little 
while, where the cultivation of the ranch 
stopped, giant cactus blocked their way, and 
they rode up steep little paths, single file, into 
the foothill. 

They reached a tiny plateau, and English 
stopped. 


121 


122 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“It was about this spot that I saw them,” he 
said. 

“That doesn’t mean much,” Sulky laughed. 
“That was yesterday, they may be fifty miles 
away today. 

As the discussed the advisability of moving 
on, Janet looked around her. From a clump 
of greasewood, almost directly under the horse's 
feet, and a little down the slope, she saw a pair 
of long ears and two bright eyes that looked at 
her curiously. 

“Isn’t that one of them?” she whispered ex- 
citedly. 

Sulky and English turned just as the little 
burro kicked up his heels and ran down the 
slope. 

“Reckon the rest are not far away,” Sulky 
said. “Let’s have a look.” 

They rode after the retreating burro at top 
speed, and it was not long before they came to 
the herd. 


TRAILING THE BURROS 123 

“Why, the darlings !” Janet exclaimed, as she 
saw the funny little animals frisking about. 

Sulky lead Booster to a level spot and left 
Janet alone to watch as he and English swooped 
down on the burros, twirling their lassoes above 
their heads. 

For a time the fun was fast and furious. The 
lively little steeds would always escape by a 
hair’s breadth and then the chase would start 
all over. They moved on, first down the slope 
and then up, Janet following, until they were 
well into the hills. J anet felt that she was indeed 
on the high places of the world, or in a different 
planet, for the broad plateau of the table land 
seemed a place apart, and she had the curious 
feeling that she was suspended in air. 

At the most exciting part of the race, she was 
watching Sulky and English from a consider- 
able height. She saw Sulky suddenly wheel his 
horse about and ride over to English. Janet 


124 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
thought it was strange that he did not shout 
what he wanted to say, and she was more than 
surprised when, after a minute’s conversation, 
both men wheeled their horses and cantered 
back to her. 

“Home we go, little lady,” Sulky said hur- 
riedly. 

Janet stared at him in amazement. 

“But what about the burros?” she inquired. 

“Too beastly fast,” English tried to explain, 
“we’ll have to come another day.” 

Janet did not ask any more questions, she had 
too much sense for that. She thought hard all 
the way home, but when they reached the Twin 
Stars she was no nearer to the explanation than 
when she started out. 

There was a lot of good-natured teasing when 
they returned without the burros, but Sulky took 
Tom into the office, and when they returned 
Tom looked very grave. 


TRAILING THE BURROS 125 

Phyllis’s return created a diversion. She was 
driving the car, and by the triumphant tilt of 
her head Janet knew that she had driven the 
car at the coveted forty miles an hour. 

“It’s been a perfectly thrilling day!” she ex- 
claimed. “Tommy, dear, I am so glad you had 
to send Beggar to town, I drove the car both 
ways, and if Auntie Mogs were not here I would 
tell you how fast we went. 

Auntie Mogs laughed. “Dear child, don’t 
stop on my account,” she said. “If they ask 
me about it, I shall most certainly tell them we 
went one hundred and fifty miles all the time.” 

“Well, it wasn’t quite as bad as all that,” 
Phyllis smiled contentedly, 'but we did hit forty. 
Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she added excitedly, 
“the Mexicans are out, bands of them, and they 
are burning up peoples’ barns and things all 
over the place. Isn’t that thrilling!” 

Janet listened in silence, but just before dinner 
she went to Sulky. 


126 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Uncle Pete, why didn’t we wait and catch the 
burros this afternoon?” she demanded. 

“Because, little lady, I saw a bunch of Mexi- 
cans over across on the next hill and I didn’t 
think the neighborhood was healthy,” he told 
her, and went back to the harness he was 
cleaning. 

“I thought it was something like that. Now 
I suppose we can’t have the picnic?” ' 

“Reckon not,” Sulky replied. “Tom will 
want you and your sister to stay pretty close to 
home.” 

Janet nodded and went thoughtfully into the 
house, here eyes shining. 


CHAPTER XII 

A HINT OF DANGER 

A FTER dinner that night Tom called 
Janet and Phyllis into his office. He 
looked worried, and he spoke abruptly. 
“Look here, youngsters; I want you 
to promise me something/’ he began. 

“Why Tommy, what is the matter?” Phyllis 
inquired. 

Janet nodded her head in understanding; she 
knew what was coming. 

“The Mexicans are out, and though that does 
not mean there is any danger, still I want you 
both to stay very close to the house.” 

127 


128 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“How simply thrilling!” Phyllis exclaimed. 

“No more nice long horseback rides,” Janet 
mourned. 

Tom, who up until now had been watching 
them both with a rather anxious expression, 
swung round to his desk and laughed. 

“I might have known you wouldn’t be 
scared,” he said with a note of pride in his 
voice. “Well, chase along but don’t tell Auntie 
Mogs anything about all this. It would frighten 
her and there is really no need to worry as long 
as you stay near the house. 

“Scared!” Phyllis laughed at the idea. “I’d 
as soon be scared of a few Mexicans with Beggar 
here to protect us from them as I would of a 
sky terrier.” 

“Thanks,” Tom replied dryly. “Who will 
you choose as your special bodyguard, Jan,” he 
asked, laughing. 

“Oh, I’d feel safe with any of them,” Janet 
replied. 


A HINT OF DANGER 


129 


“That’s better,” Tom nodded. 

“But of course,” she continued without 
paying any attention to his interruption, “I’d 
like to have Sulky or English Kedgeree.” 

When Tom stopped laughing he managed to 
say: 

“Well, I congratulate you on picking my very 
best men, at any rate.” 

“Cheer up about the picnic,” he added as 
they were leaving. “We’ll have that any way, 
even if we have to eat in the corral.” 

And a picnic they had indeed! Phyllis per- 
suaded Screw Williams to take a note over to 
Daisy Weaver, telling her that they were still 
planning on her coming if she were not afraid 
of the Mexicans. 

An answer came back saying that she was 
not a bit afraid and that as her father expected 
to spend the day in Loophole she was sure she 
could get away. 


130 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“I’ll bet that he is going away just so that 
Daisy can come,” Janet announced after they 
had all read the note. 

They were in Auntie Mogs room, the twins 
were sitting on the window seat and Auntie 
Mogs sewed in the wicker rocker. 

“He’d never dare face you, Phyl., if he didn’t 
let her come,” she added. 

“Nonsense,” Phyllis protested, u Fm not the 
one he’ll be likely to be afraid of. You were the 
one that gave him a dressing down.” 

“I do hope she will be all right getting here,” 
Auntie Mogs said uneasily. “If there are Mexi- 
cans about I can’t believe it is safe for a girl to 
ride about alone.” 

“Why, Auntie Mogs, who ever put such an 
idea into your head?” Phyllis demanded. 

“Tommy says we are perfectly safe,” Janet 
assured her. 

“Still, I don’t like it,” Auntie Mogs folded up 


A HINT OF DANGER 131 

her sewing and by the expression of her delicate 
little mouth, the twins knew that she had made 
up her mind to something. 

Just what that something was they found out 
at dinner. Auntie Mogs had been very quiet 
during the meal, but when the dessert came in 
she turned to Tom. 

“Did you know, dear, that Daisy Weaver had 
written to the girls that she was coming to the 
picnic tomorrow?” she inquired. 

“No ; is she?” Tom tried to keep some of the 
eagerness out of his voice as he answered, but 
he failed completely. 

“Yes, she is coming, and I can’t help being a 
little worried about her. It’s all very well to 
say that Mexicans are harmless, but I don’t 
think that girl ought to come all the way over 
here by herself. Can’t you go and meet her?” 

Janet tried to kick Phyllis under the table but 
she kicked English by mistake. He flashed her 


132 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


a smile of perfect understanding that might 
almost have been called a wink. 

“I’ll see that she gets here and returns safely,” 
Tom promised, and then changed the subject 
so abruptly that everybody wanted to laugh. 

On the afternoon of the picnic — it was to be 
a supper instead of a luncheon — all the men 
disappeared. Some of them carried the baskets 
of food to the nook where they were going to 
have the picnic and some of them had mysterious 
but pressing business away from the ranch. 

Tom came into the living room about three 
o’clock. It was deserted, but he heard laughter 
in the dining room, where the twins were finish- 
ing the sandwiches. 

“Where are all the boys?” he inquired. 

“Don’t know, Tommy,” Phyllis replied. 

“Sulky was here not so very long ago,” Janet 
told him. 


‘Where is he now? : 


A HINT OF DANGER 


133 


“Haven’t the least idea.” 

“Tom, isn’t it time that someone went to meet 
Daisy Weaver?” Auntie Mogs entered the 
room just as Tom was about to leave. 

“Guess it is,” Tom replied. “I can’t find any 
of the boys, so I will have to go myself. Shall 
I bring her here or shall we meet you at the 
picnic grounds?” 

“Oh, the picnic grounds!” Janet and Phyllis 
exclaimed together. “We are starting right 
away.” 

After Tom had left them, the two conspirators 
looked at each other and smiled mysteriously. 

“It’s a lot longer to the picnic place,” Phyllis 
said softly. 

“Hum; I shouldn’t wonder if they rode the 
whole way without a word,” Janet remarked 
thoughtfully. “We’d better get ready to start.” 

“Where did Sulky say you could find him 

-cn you wanted the horses saddled?” 


134 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“In the tool house. He had a lot of things he 
wanted to mend.” 

“Dear me, if Tom had known he was so near 
he would have asked him to go for Daisy.” 
Auntie Mogs did not know that she was saying 
anything amusing and she was very much sur- 
prised when the twins burst into a sudden gale 
of laughter. In an instant she understood, and 
her soft laugh joined their hearty ones. 

At the sheltered nook that nestled triangle 
shape into the hill on which the twins had had 
their first view of the ranch house the boys 
waited. They had built a fire and spread rugs 
on the ground. The hampers were open and 
everything was in readiness. 

As they rode softly up the twins heard the men 
singing. 

“And that makes it altogether perfect,” 
Phyllis exclaimed. 

They reined in their horses and listened until 


A HINT OF DANGER 135 
the last notes of the song floated away on the 
golden air. Then they rode on at a gallop — that 
is, all except Auntie Mogs, who was comfortably 
seated on an old side saddle, borrowed especially 
for her coming, and mounted on the oldest horse 
in Tom’s possession. 

“Oh, that was beautiful!” Phyllis exclaimed. 
“Please sing some more.” 

But the men all looked at each other in em- 
barrassment and Phyllis, seeing it, did not tease 
for any more just then. 

They had quite a long wait before Daisy and 
Tom arrived. 

Daisy looked prettier than ever and, as Janet 
said afterwards, “Tom looked crosser.” They 
rode up at a brisk canter and Daisy’s eyes danced 
as English Kedgeree helped her down from her 
horse. 

“I say, it is nice to see you again,” he began ; 
“we’ve missed you.” 


136 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

“Should say we have,” Beggar added. 

“You hadn’t ought to neglect us this way,” Jim 
Martin’s soft drawl finished. 

But Daisy held out both hands to the twins. 

“It was awfully good of you to want me,” she 
said simply. 

Phyllis introduced her to Auntie Mogs and 
in the smile of understanding and the eager 
hand-clasp that passed between them, a friend- 
ship started that grew strong with the years to 
come. 

It was not long before the supper was spread 
before them. 

The twins insisted that Daisy must sit between 
them, but Auntie Mogs ruled otherwise and 
seated her finally at Tom’s right. Janet found 
her place between Sulky and English, and 
Phyllis, her back comfortably settled against 
the warm rock, divided her attentions between 
Beggar and Circus Bailey. 


A HINT OF DANGER 


137 


It was such a lively feast that it lasted for a 
long while. After it was over they all played 
games — children’s games with forfeits and all 
the things that make people laugh. 

After a very strenuous game of tag they settled 
down around the fire and sang. Old songs for 
the most part that Tom and English could sing 
second to. 

Then came the war songs. All the boys had 
been over except Tom and Sulky, and in the 
intervals they told stories of the trenches that 
left queer lumps in their hearers’ throats. 

It was after they had finished “The Long, 
Long Trail” for perhaps the sixth time that 
Janet jumped up. 

“Look!” she exclaimed, “the sky is all red.” 

The men jumped to their feet. 

“Fire !” Begger whistled softly. 

“Our barns,” Tom added. 

“Mexs.” said English Kedgeree disgustedly. 


CHAPTER XIII 

A BRUSH WITH THE MEXICANS 

F OR a minute no one said a word ; then, as 
little away and began to talk in low 
if by common consent, the men moved a 
voices. 

“Circus, you get the horses,’’ they heard Tom 
say, and Circus hurried off. 

Finally, Tom came over to Auntie Mogs. 

“Everything is all right, dear. You are none 
of you to worry. Some of us are going ahead, 
but we will keep in touch with you and when it 
is safe for you to return we will send back for 
you,” he said. 


138 


A BRUSH WITH MEXICANS 139 

Auntie Mogs nodded. “Very well, my dear, 
we will all do just as you say/’ she replied 
calmly, though her hand trembled as she rested 
it on Tom’s arm. 

A minute later the men rode off, only Sulky 
and Jim Martin staying behind. They did not 
immediately join the women, but stood talking 
earnestly. 

‘‘Not scared, are you, little lady?” Sulky in- 
quired, as he came over to Janet at last. 

“Of course not,” Janet replied. 

“You see, we don’t know for sure that the 
Mexs. had anything to do with the blaze,” he 
went on. 

“Maybe Jose dropped a match into the gaso- 
line tank,” Jim suggested. “It sounds just like 
him.” 

The laugh that followed was a dismal failure. 

“Anyway, we’ll soon find out,” Sulky tried to 
be comforting. 


140 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“How about your gun?” Jim asked in an 
undertone, but Janet and Phyllis both heard it. 

“Hold my hand tight, Jan.,” Phyllis whis- 
pered. 

“Frightened?” Janet demanded. 

“No-oo, but I always feel protected when you 
hold on to me.” 

Janet gave her hand a tight squeeze. It was 
in times like these that the twins found how 
much they needed each other. Phyllis always 
depended on Janet and her confidence gave 
Janet any amount of courage. 

“My gun’s O. K., and I have plenty to feed 
it.” Sulky was speaking. 

“Same here. I guess Screw won’t josh me 
any more about going around with an ammuni- 
tion factory.” Jim laughed a low, contented 
laugh. 

They took up positions on both sides of the 
nook and kept a constant watch into the night. 


A BRUSH WITH MEXICANS 141 


Auntie Mogs drew Daisy beside her and the 
girl put her head on her shoulder. 

“Don’t be alarmed, my dear.” Auntie Mogs 
was trying hard to be very matter-of-fact. “I 
really think Jim’s theory is right. I feel sure 
the Mexicans had nothing to do with it.” 

Daisy sighed. She was not thinking of the 
Mexicans. 

“If only I knew he was safe,” she whispered. 

Auntie Mogs did not make the mistake of 
thinking the “he” was Daisy’s father. She knew 
it was Tom, and her arm tightened around the 
slender shoulder. 

They talked in whispers, for Sulky had cau- 
tioned them to be quiet and the time dragged by. 

Twice Janet saw Jim return to the dying 
fire and look at his watch. At last he crossed 
over to Sulky and they talked for a little while, 
evidently arguing out some point. 

At last the most hideous sound in the world 


142 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


came to them — gun fire. They heard it first 
faintly, but it grew louder with every shot. 

“Something’s up, anyway,” Jim said with a 
sigh of relief. 

Sulky stood up to listen. 

“West pasture, I’d say,” he said quietly. 
“Won’t be long now,” he added confidently. 

But it seemed an age more of waiting before 
a faint “Hello” reached them, followed by the 
welcome sight of English Kedgeree, his horse 
covered with foam, his hat gone, but, as always, 
in good spirits. 

“Better come along now,” he said cheerfully. 

“Is everything all right?” Auntie Mogs asked 
the question that was in every mouth. 

“Oh yes, absolutely,” English assured her. 
“We had a bit of a shindy and some of the boys 
got scratched, but we accounted for all the 
Mexs., so that's all right.” 

It was perhaps just as well that Auntie Mogs 


A BRUSH WITH MEXICANS 143 
did not understand what “accounted for'’ meant. 

Jim’s question, “Didn’t you leave one for me?” 
was lost on her as well. 

The twins and Daisy, however, understood. 

“Let’s hurry,” Janet exclaimed. “Perhaps 
we could help.” 

They were soon on their horses and, with the 
three men riding close around them, they rode as 
fast as Auntie Mogs’ horse could carry them, 
for being the slowest, he had to set the pace. 

Sulky and Jim asked questions as they rode. 

“What’s burnt?” from Sulky. 

“Only the tool house. We caught them 
getting ready to fire the barn and Circus found 
some gasoline up by the house,” English ex- 
plained. 

“How about Jose?” Jim inquired. 

“Roped to a chair in the kitchen. He’s still 
too frightened to talk, but we gather that his 
countrymen planned to burn him along with the 


144 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
house. Cheerful beggars they are, aren’t they?” 
English rolled and lit a cigarette with one hand. 
Phyllis, who had always watched him, fas- 
cinated, when he did it, was overcome with 
admiration at his steady hand tonight. 

They found the ranch house ablaze with light 
and the men in a far worse condition than 
English had lead them to suppose. Tom’s shirt 
was torn at the shoulder and the sleeve of it was 
covered with blood. 

Beggar and Circus were lying on the floor of 
the living room. A bad gash ran down the 
whole length of Beggar’s cheek and Circus was 
doubled up with pain, for a bullet had lodged 
in his hip. 

Screw Williams was the proud possessor of a 
black eye. 

“The man that gave me this must have lived 
a considerable time this side of the border,” he 
explained with a pleased grin. “He sure could 
punch.” 


A BRUSH WITH MEXICANS 145 

The girls, with Auntie Mogs to direct them, 
set about bandaging and dressing the wounds. 
Phyllis bathed Beggar’s cheek and swathed his 
head in soft linen. Daisy was doing what she 
could for Tom. Janet had just finished giving 
Circus a drink when she happened to look out 
on the veranda just in time to see English fall 
forward on his face. 

She rushed to him and, with Screw’s assist- 
ance, dragged him into the house. He had been 
badly shot through the arm but he had ridden 
out to bring them home, insisting that he was 
not hurt. He had answered their questions on 
the ride home and none of them had guessed that 
he was hurt. Now he was in a dead faint from 
loss of blood. 

“Gcil yl” Screw Williams was the first to 
speak, although Janet was doing all in her power 
to bring him around. 

‘‘Golly!” he repeated. “I take off my hat, old 


146 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


pal, and I’ll never slam the British again even 
to get you mad.” It was the sincerest tribute 
that Screw could have paid. 

“Tommy, we must get a doctor,” Auntie Mogs 
almost cried. “Can’t one of the men go into 
town?” 

Tom smiled at her weakly. “I don’t see how, 
dear,” he said. “We must have men to guard the 
place. Some of the Mexicans may have gotten 
away. Sulky and Jim are on watch now.” 

“And I’m going to join them.” Screw got up 
shakily. 

“But you can’t,” Phyllis protested. “Your 
head must be splitting.” 

For answer, Screw looked at the still uncon- 
scious English and walked painfully out of the 
room. 

A minute later Phyllis followed him. No 
one missed her, for Daisy and Janet were busy 
working over English and Auntie Mogs had 
Circus Bailey’s head in her lap. 


A BRUSH WITH MEXICANS 147 

Suddenly Beggar sat up and at the same time 
the others heard an automobile. 

“Where is she?” he demanded. Stop her, 
somebody !” The roads aren’t safe at night.” 
He tried to get up, but he fell back exhausted. 

“Phyllis!” Auntie Mogs cried. 

Janet looked out of the open door and strained 
her ears for the last sound of the car. 

“Don’t worry, Auntie Mogs,” she said softly. 
“Phyl. will make it all right.” 

“I could follow her on my horse,” Daisy sug- 
gested. “She wouldn’t go very fast at night.” 

“You could do no such thing,” Tom replied 
sternly, and Daisy subsided. Janet leaned over 
and squeezed her hand. 

“You’re a peach to offer,” she whispered. 

It was a weary wait, those two hours before 
Phyllis’ return, but to Phyllis they were even 
longer. Doubled over the wheel she forced the 
car ahead at a terrific speed. It was one of the 


148 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
times when she had changed places with her 
twin and she kept saying over and over to her- 
self: “lam Janet; I am Janet.” 

She reached Loophole at last and honked her 
horn up and down the main street. All the men 
came out of their houses and shops, for it was 
still early, and in a very few minutes the car was 
filled and the doctor took the wheel. 

Phyllis answered questions all the way home. 
Every now and then the doctor would turn to 
look at her. 

“Didn’t know they made ’em like that in the 
East,” was his only comment. 


CHAPTER XIV 

A TELEPHONE MESSAGE 

N O, Tom, I won’t promise you any such 
thing,” Janet heard Daisy’s voice as 
she came under the living room 
window. She ducked, but not before 
she heard Tom answer. 

“Very well.” His voice sounded stern, as it 
always did when he talked to Daisy. “But it is 
not safe for you to be out alone and it makes it 
harder for those of us who are responsible for 
your safety.” 

“You are not responsible for my — Janet 
heard no more. 


149 


150 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


She went off in search of English, who was 
wandering disconsolate around the corral. It 
was four days after the raid and he was not 
sufficiently recovered to ride. The enforced rest 
was making him very nervous. 

“Hello, little nurse !” he greeted as he saw 
J anet. 

“You are to come straight out of the sun,” 
Janet told him without preamble. 

“Oh, come now; I’m only taking a bit of a 
stroll. Can’t possibly hurt me, you know,” he 
protested. 

“Oh, but it can. It can bring back that awful 
fever,” Janet insisted; so in you come. I’ll fix 
a nice chair for you on the north side of the 
veranda and I’ll make you something cool to 
drink — and that’s more than you deserve, for 
you really knew better than to come out here 
in this broiling sun,” she added. 

English laughed and followed her to the 


A TELEPHONE MESSAGE 151 
house. As they passed the living room they 
heard Tom and Daisy, their voices raised in 
anger. 

Janet looked at English. “Aren’t they silly?” 
she asked lightly. 

“Well, all things considered, I think they are, 
rather,” English replied gravely. 

“Suppose I sit here?” he suggested timidly, 
as they reached the veranda. He indicated the 
steps. 

Janet’s only answer was a look of scorn. She 
went into the house and came back dragging a 
big rocker. Then she found sofa cushions and a 
light slumber robe. She prodded and patted 
them until they were to her liking and then she 
looked once more at English. 

Without a word he got up and meekly settled 
himself amongst the pillows. Janet slipped one 
under his sore arm, threw the robe over him and 
went back into the house. 


152 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Jose, I want some lemons and some oranges 
and some of those maraschino cherries that you 
keep hidden in that little bottle,” she announced, 
with her sweetest smile, from the door of the 
kitchen. 

Jose, now completely recovered from his ter- 
rible fright, spent most of his time in swearing 
vengeance on his brother Mexicans and this 
kept him in a very bad humor most of the time. 

“No can have,” he replied stoutly. “Me, I 
save those cherries for a swell dessert. The 
oranges and the lemons I give you.” 

“But they won’t do me a bit of good without 
the cherries,” Janet protested. 

“No can have,” Jose reiterated. 

“I wouldn’t ask for them myself,” Janet went 
on, “but I do think that any one as brave and as 
splendid as English Kedgeree should have all 
the cherries he wants. Don’t you?” 

The name acted like a charm. Jose’s scowl 
disappeared and a smile spread over his face. 


A TELEPHONE MESSAGE 153 

“For him, yes. For that man I give all I got.” 
He hastened to unearth the cherished bottle. 
“Did he not find me before those fiends could set 
fire to me and when I weep on his shoulder he 
say, There, there, old chap,’ and he never tell 
anybody what I do.’’ 

Janet was busy squeezing the lemons, but her 
lack of response did not discourage Jose. He 
rambled on until Daisy, looking suspiciously red 
around the eyes, interrupted him. 

Daisy had been at the Twin Stars ever since 
the raid and her father had stayed in Loophole. 
They had been days of happiness to the lonely 
girl. 

“Janet, I am going back to the cabin,” she 
announced suddenly. 

“Whatever for?” Janet demanded. 

“Because I must.” 

“Why must. Have you heard from your 
father?” 


154 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

“No, but I expect I will today.” 

“Then I don’t see what you are talking about. 
Suppose you don’t hear?” 

“Then I’ll go back anyhow.” 

“How foolish. You’ll do no such thing.” 

“See if I don’t,” Daisy said darkly, and left 
the room. 

Janet returned to her fruit. 

“Here you are,” she said a few minutes later, 
as she handed the cold glass to English. 

“I say, that does look good,” he exclaimed. 
“You know you’re most awfully kind to me.” 

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Janet demanded 
frankly. “I like you ever so much in the first 
place, and in the second it’s really awfully good 
fun taking care of you. I’m not sure that I won’t 
be a trained nurse some day. That is, if it wasn’t 
for Phyl. She gets very sick if she sees a little 
blood and, of course, I couldn’t do anything 
without her, you know.” 


A TELEPHONE MESSAGE 1SS 


“Rather not,” English agreed. “Besides, you 
wouldn’t like it nearly as well as you think you 
would. I had a sister that tried it once.” 

“Oh, tell me about her,” Janet insisted. 

English looked out over the waste of sand and 
his clear blue eyes blurred. 

“She died when I was just a lad,” he said 
quietly. 

Janet put her hand on his arm in instant sym- 
pathy. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Tell me, how did she 
die?” she added softly. 

“She sucked the poison out of a boy’s throat 
when he had diphtheria. She saved his life — a 
useless one, and lost her own — a beautiful one.” 
He spoke bitterly and something in his expres- 
sion made Janet ask: 

“Who was the boy, English?” 

He looked at her as though he had forgotten 
she was there. 


156 TtfE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Who? Oh, I was,” he said; and Janet real- 
ized that it was a very .great sorrow and that he 
did not want to speak of it. 

Fortunately Tom interrupted them. 

“Hello, English!” he said, and he put his arm 
around Janet as he spoke. “I’ve just had a 
curious telephone call. Do you remember 
Locke?” 

“The little lawyer at Loophole?” English 
inquired. 

“Yes, that’s the man.” 

“What about him?” 

“I’ve just been talking to him on the phone. 
He was very mysterious and very anxious to 
Iiaow where old man Weaver was.” 

“You’re a good one to ask that,” English 
chuckled. 

“I told him as much. Then he said he had 
been informed that Mr. Weaver had not been 
seen for two days, either at his cabin or in Loop- 
hole.” 


A TELEPHONE MESSAGE 157 

“That sounds a bit odd. Did you tell him 
Daisy was here?” 

“Oh, he knew it; he knew everything. He 
asked me if she were going to stay and I said 
certainly, until she heard from her father.” 

“Righto; what next?” 

“He said he had an important communication 
to make to her, but he would have to think out 
the best way of approaching it and that I would 
hear from him again.” 

Janet had been listening intently. 

“I wonder what could have happened to Mr. 
Weaver,” she said at last. 

“That’s just the trouble. I’m not worrying 
about Locke’s communication, but how the 
deuce am I going to tell Daisy that her father 
has disappeared?” Tom looked the consterna- 
tion he felt. 

“Don’t worry about it, old thing. Weaver is 
sure to turn up,” was English’s advice. 


153 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


Tom went inside and Janet led the conver- 
sation back to England. English talked for over 
an hour of the sweet-smelling Surrey lanes, the 
roses in the trim gardens and his mother. 

It was Phyllis who interrupted them this time. 
She rushed out of the house and nearly knocked 
Janet off the railing, where she was perched. 

“Jan., for pity’s sake, do come and see who is 
driving up to the door in a buggy!” she ex- 
claimed. 

Janet followed her to the front of the house 
and beheld, to her consternation, that it was no 
less a person than the Miss Weatherby of the 
hair curlers. 

“What is she doing here?” she demanded. 

“I don’t know; but isn’t it awful!” Phyllis 
replied. “Let’s go and tell Auntie Mogs. 

Janet caught a phrase of Tom’s as he ran down 
the steps to meet the arrivals. 

“How do you do, Mr. Locke,” was what he 
said. 


A TELEPHONE MESSAGE 159 

At the same moment, out of the corner of her 
eye she saw Daisy, on her horse, disappearing 
over a distant hill. 

“This is too much for me,” she said, and 
jumped from the porch and made for the corral. 

She left Phyllis staring at the empty hall, too 
astonished to move. 


CHAPTER XV 

A THRILLING RIDE 

I T was just turning dusk when Janet wheeled 
Booster out of the corral and headed after 
Daisy. It took several minutes of hard 
riding before the silhouette of her and her 
horse loomed up against the darkening sky. 
Janet kept it in sight and pressed Booster to 
even greater lengths. The little horse responded 
gamely and two miles from the ranch Daisy 
was within calling distance. 

For the past half mile, Janet had been con- 
scious that she was being followed. She turned 

160 


A THRILLING RIDE 


161 


in the saddle and saw to her horror a long line 
of mounted men. They formed a half circle 
that looked as though it might close in on her 
any minute. 

Daisy slowed down as she saw Janet and at the 
same time she, too, saw the following horse- 
men. 

Janet never slackened her speed. She saw at 
a glance that she would have to take the lead, 
for Daisy sat her horse, white-lipped and frozen 
with fear. 

“Follow me!” Janet shouted as she raced past. 

Daisy’s horse followed and the grim race 
began. Janet led the way to the path that she 
had taken with Sulky and English. The horses 
tripped and stumbled, but their riders pulled 
them up and after an endless climb they came 
to the first little plateau where Janet had seen 
the burro. 

“Get off, quick!” Janet commanded, and Daisy 
threw herself to the ground. 


162 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

With the palm of her hand, Janet slapped the 
horses’ flanks, after she had tied their reins to 
the pommel of the saddle. 

The startled horses gave a little whinny and 
trotted down the hill. All about them they could 
hear horsemen scrambling up the banks and 
now and then a muttered oath in Spanish. 

“Quick! under here.” Janet pulled the un- 
resisting Daisy after her and as quietly as they 
could they wormed their way into the catsclaw 
that grew close to the ground. The sharp points 
of the bush tore their clothes and scratched their 
faces, for catsclaw is as prickly as cactus. 

Daisy moaned from the terror and the pain, 
but Janet put her hand over her mouth. 

\ 

All night long, men came and almost stepped 
on them, but when the first grey streaks of dawn 
touched the sky, they were still safe in their 
hiding place. They were both numb all over 
and their bodies ached from the catsclaw. 


SHRILLING RIDE 


163 


Daisy’s shoulders shook pitifully as she sobbed 
hopelessly. Janet looked at her. Her blue eyes 
were drenched with tears and an ugly scratch 
had made her lip bleed. 

“Ddd-ont,” Daisy whispered. 

“Don’t what?” Janet asked abruptly. Her 
nerves and courage had been sorely tried during 
the long night, but her eyes were bright and 
hard. She felt disgusted with Daisy and she 
was so tired that she gave way to her feelings 
and was very irritable indeed. 

“Look at me,” Daisy begged. 

“Don’t be silly,” Janet snapped. 

“I ccc-an’t help it.” 

“Well then, don’t make so much noise about it 
or we’ll have all Mexico down on us.” 

“Can’t we ever get out of this?” 

“Oh, probably in a week or so.” Janet’s tone 
was biting and she saw Daisy cower as though 
she had received a blow. Then a sudden 


164 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
thought struck her and she remembered Tom’s 
saying that Mr. Weaver was lost. If anything 
had happened to him it would mean a terrible 
shock for Daisy when they reached home, if they 
ever did. 

She felt very much ashamed of herself. She 
put out her hand and patted Daisy’s head. 

“I’m sorry, dear,” she whispered. “I’m a 
cross old thing, but I won’t be any more.” , 

A sob broke from Daisy, but Janet let it go 
unnoticed. There were times when she was 
sorely tempted to give up and go with the Mexi- 
cans ; anything seemed better than this. 

Daisy’s sobs quieted down and after a little 
while she slept from sheer exhaustion. Janet 
closed her eyes, but she was too hungry to sleep. 

In the meantime the most terrible anxiety 
hung over the ranch. As SQon as Janet had left, 
Phyllis ran to the corral and found Sulky. She 
explained Janet’s queer behavior to him, but 


A THRILLING RIDE 


165 


neither they nor any of the rest understood why 
she had gone until they discovered that Daisy 
was also missing. 

“Daisy went as she threatened to,’’ Tom said 
slowly, “and I suppose Janet followed her.” 

“Well, they’ll come back in their own good 
time, won’t they?” Miss Weatherby demanded 
irritably from the doorway. 

When Tom had left her so abruptly at Phyllis’ 
urgent call she had followed him into the house. 

“I never saw so much commotion in all my 
life. Have none of you any consideration for 
me? I am tired and hot and I would like a cup 
of tea.” 

Auntie Mogs got up slowly and went out to 
the kitchen and told Jose to bring in tea for their 
guest. No one answered Miss Weatherby. 

“Guess I’ll dust along,” Sulky said. “Coming, 
Tom?” 

Tom nodded grimly. His shoulder still hurt 
him, but he did not pay any attention to it. 


166 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“I’m with you.” English got up from his 
comfortable chair. He looked so determined 
that no one dared to stop him. 

With a feeling of profound relief, Auntie 
Mogs and Phyllis heard the beat of their horses 
as they thundered past the house. 

Auntie Mogs made an effort and turned her 
attention to Miss Weatherby. She was spared 
the trial of explaining by the timely arrival of 
Mr. Locke, who had been putting his horse up 
in the barn and knew all about it. 

“It is certainly dreadful, but we must all hope 
for the best,” he added lamely, and Phyllis was 
seized with an overpowering desire to slap him. 

“Well, it is certainly most unfortunate,” Miss 
Weatherby complained. “Here I come miles 
and miles at the dictate of my conscience, to offer 
my niece a sensible home and I find her racing 
over the country with Mexican bandits.” 

“As for you, Miss”— she turned suddenly to 


A THRILLING RIDE 167 

Phyllis — “it’s a wonder it isn’t you and not your 
twin that is out there. After the way you 
frightened me that night in the sleeper I would 
expect anything/’ 

Phyllis smiled in spite of the agony in her 
heart, but a second later she burst into a torrent 
of tears and flung herself down beside her aunt 
and buried her head in her lap. 

The rest of the boys came in, to go right out 
again as soon as they heard the news. Miss 
Carter showed Miss Weatherby and Mr. Locke 
to their rooms, and returned to Phyllis and the 
long waiting. 

Dawn came, the world turned pink and then a 
red sun mounted the heavens and the air seemed 
heavy with its rays. 

Jose brought breakfast, of which Miss Weath- 
erby ate heartily, Mr. Locke sparingly and 
Auntie Mogs and Phyllis not at all. 

Back on the tiny plateau Daisy still slept and 


168 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
Janet at last dozed off, to awaken to the shud- 
dering knowledge that someone was standing 
over her. In a confused way she realized that 
whoever it was, he had not discovered them. 
She held her breath and prayed that Daisy 
would not awaken. 

The man above her moved and a huge foot 
in very dusty riding boots came down within an 
inch of Daisy’s head. 

“Sulky!” Janet would have known that boot 
anywhere. She threw her arms about it and 
hugged it now. 

“Lord of Mercy!” Sulky said reverently; 
“little lady.” There was a world of affection in 
the words and unbidden the tears rushed to his 
steel grey eyes. 

Janet wriggled painfully out of her hiding 
place. Sulky fired his gun three times and in an 
instant there were two answering reports, fol- 
lowed by Tom and English. 


A THRILLING RIDE 169 

“JanM’ Tom fairly shouted. “Oh, my little 
sister, what made you do it?” 

“I had to take care of her,” she replied, point- 
ing to the now awakened Daisy. Then she fell 
forward, to be caught and held by Sulky, who 
carried her home on the front of his saddle. 

Jose dashed in through the kitchen with a 
towel over his head, shouting: 

“They are found; they are found!” 

Miss Weatherby stood up and smoothed out 
her black satin. Mr. Locke rubbed his hands 
together, happily. Sulky and Tom were in the 
room in a minute, and Janet was held close in 
Phyllis’ arms. 

Daisy looked about her, and her eyes rested on 
Miss Weatherby inquiringly. That lady stepped 
forward, and said: “Girl, I am your aunt.” 

Daisy fainted dead away, and Miss Weather- 
by’s story had perforce to wait until the next day. 


CHAPTER XVI 

DAISY HAS AN OFFER 

A ND the next day she gave it with all the 
pomp and dignity of which she was 
master. Daisy listened to her in silence. 
Tom had already told her that her father 
had disappeared, but he had kept from her 
Mr. Locke’s latest news, which was that Mr. 
Weaver’s body had been found stabbed near the 
door of his cabin. 

“What do you want me to do, Aunt Louise?” 
Daisy asked meekly. Miss Weatherby drew 
herself up, 


170 


DAISY HAS AN OFFER 


171 


“First of all,” she said, “I want to get you 
away from here. This is not the sort of country 
for a gentlewoman to live in.” 

Daisy looked at her, a speechless wonder in 
her eyes. 

“And then?” she said patiently. 

“Then we will return to Boston, where I hope 
to place you in a select school for young women. 
After that you will be my companion. We will 
leave as soon as you are able to be moved.” 

Then Daisy did an astonishing thing. She 
said: “No thank you”; and Miss Weatherby 
had to fan herself vigorously before she could 
summon the courage to demand what she meant. 

“I’m not going to leave Loophole,” Daisy said 
stubbornly. 

“And pray, what are you going to do at Loop- 
hole now that your father is dead?” 

“Dead!” Daisy exclaimed. “Oh no!” She 
was thoroughly stunned, and Miss Weatherby 
saw her mistake. 


172 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Well, perhaps I shouldn’t have told you so 
abruptly; but you have to know sometime, and 
it is always best to get the telling of unpleasant 
things over with. You must be brave, my dear. 
After all, your father was not a very responsible 
man.” 

Daisy looked at her in horror for a moment. 
Then she buried her face in the pillow, and 
screamed. 

“I hate you ! I hate you !” she cried. “I won’t 
go with you to Boston, and I won’t leave Loop- 
hole.” The pillow and her loud sobs choked 
further utterance. Miss Weatherby got up in 
indignant silence and left the room. 

Auntie Mogs saw her go, and heard Daisy’s 
sobs. She hurried to her and the girl snuggled 
into her arms. 

“Oh, she said — ” she began. 

“Never mind what she said; I can guess,” 
Auntie Mogs replied. “Try not to think about 


DAISY HAS AN OFFER 


173 


it, and lie quiet. You mustn’t get excited; and 
remember, my dear, this house is yours for just 
as long as you want to stay in it. Don’t worry 
about where you are going until you are strong 
enough to think of it saneiy.” 

Daisy sighed a happy little sigh, and her head 
dropped on Auntie Mogs’ shoulder. 

Auntie Mogs held her until her regular 
breathing told that she had gone to sleep. Then 
she went to find Tom. 

Phyllis was sitting on the edge of Janet’s bed. 

“Give me the hand mirror, Phyl,” Janet 
asked. 

Phyllis, who would have gladly given her the 
moon, had she asked for it, flew to her bag. 
Janet looked at herself for a long time. 

“No one will mix us up now,” she said rue- 
fully. “Just look at the scratches on my face.” 

“Poor darling,” Phyllis sympathized. “Any- 
how, you’re back safe and sound and that’s all 
that matters.” 


174 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


Screw Williams went past the window carry- 
ing a big box on his shoulder. 

“Hello, what’ve you got there?” 

“A big box for your aunt,” Screw told her. 

“Oh good,” Phyllis exclaimed. “I know what 
it is. Leave it in here.” 

Screw looked at the box, and stood around 
waiting to see if there was anything more to do. 

“Go away, Screw, and don’t peak. This is a 
surprise,” Phyllis said, and she pushed the box 
out of sight of the window. 

“What is it?” Janet asked excitedly. 

“Why, it’s the chintz Auntie Mogs sent for the 
day after Tom said we could decorate the 
house.” 

“Oh dear, I must hurry up and get well,” 
Janet exclaimed. “Do open it and let’s see what 
it looks like.” 

“Wait a minute, and I’ll call Auntie Mogs.” 

She found her in Daisy’s room, and together 
they tiptoed back to Janet. 


DAISY HAS AN OFFER 175 

Phyllis opened the package and disclosed a 
bolt of beautiful chintz. It was a black back- 
ground, with masses of pink roses. 

“That’s the very kind we have at home,” 
Phyllis exclaimed. 

“Oh, I do hope the boys will like it,” Janet 
said doubtfully. 

“Oh, of course they will,” Phyllis laughed. 
“Can’t we start the curtains today?” 

“Let’s wait until Miss Weatherby goes,” 
Auntie Mogs said. “She is so very difficult. I 
must go to her now, an see if there is anything I 
can do for her. Do you know, she offered to 
take Daisy back to Boston with her, and Daisy 
refused to go.” 

“Of course she did,” Janet exclaimed, and 
Phyllis echoed: 

“Good for Daisy!” 

Auntie Mogs found Miss Weatherby packing 
her bag. She was very huffy indeed, and Auntie 


176 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


Mogs watched her climb gingerly into Mr. 
Locke’s buggy with a sigh of genuine relief, and 
drive away. 

The rest of the day was a busy sewing bee. 
Now that Miss Weatherby had gone, Daisy 
began to feel better. Phyllis helped Janet into 
her room, and they spent the happiest of after- 
noons sewing on the curtains. 

“What will you do, Daisy?” Auntie Mogs 
asked. “Surely you will sell your ranch.” 

Daisy nodded. “And I think perhaps I can 
get a job in the little school,” she added. 

“Would you like to teach?” Janet inquired 
wonderingly. 

“Indeed I would,” Daisy replied. “I love 
children. When my mother was alive we used 
to have a kindergarten of all the children from 
miles around. My mother was a college woman, 
but she loved babies, and we used to have the 
happiest times.” 


DAISY HAS AN OFFER 


177 


Because she was very weak, her eyes filled 
with tears, and Phyllis hastily changed the sub- 
ject. 

“I say we make a cover for that hideous old 
rocker in the living room,” she said. “It would 
be easy. Just a straight piece for the front, and 
a straight piece for the back, and a ruffle all 
around the bottom.” 

“How about the arms?” Janet inquired. 

“There aren’t any, smarty. Tell you what 
I’ll do. I’ll get some newspapers and go in and 
cut a pattern of it.” 

She slipped out of the room and a few minutes 
later, when Beggar entered the living room, he 
found her on her hands and knees before a 
dilapidated but very comfortable chair. 

“I’d give a good deal to know what you’re up 
to,” Beggar laughed, “but I suppose it won’t do 
any good to ask?” 

“Not the least bit in the world,” Phyllis re- 
plied gayly. “Wait and see.” 


178 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


She returned to Daisy’s room with a very 
clumsy paper pattern, carefully pinned together. 
They eyed it with misgiving, but Phyllis assured 
them that she knew exactly what she was doing, 
and that that was going to be her job. 

She got down on the floor and struggled with 
it for the remainder of the afternoon. 

Suddenly, in the middle of their peaceful 
circle, a bloodcurdling whoop rent the air. 

“What under the sun is that?” Janet de- 
manded. 

Daisy turned white. 

“It sounded like Tom,” she said. “Oh dear, 
I hope it’s nothing more dreadful.” 

Then they heard Tom’s big voice calling: 

“Who put pins in my favorite chair,” exactly 
as he might have said, “Fee, Fo, Fi, Fum.” 

Phyllis gave a startled jump. 

“My Aunt Jane’s Poll-parrot, I did!” and 
when Tom rattled the handle of the door she 
rolled right under the bed. 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE RANCH PUTS ON AIRS 

W HAT coujd be nicer. It’s happened 
just the very way we wanted it to,” 
Janet exclaimed, as the last of the 
men disappeared into the distance. 

A week had passed since the last chapter, and 
it had been a busy one for the girls at the Twin 
Star Ranch. They had sewed industriously, but 
never where any of the men could see them, for 
they wanted the redecoration of the house to be 
a complete surprise. 

This very morning at breakfast, Tom had an- 


180 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
nounced that they would all be gone for the day. 
Everything was finished, and it seemed as if 
their absence was made to order. 

Janet and Daisy were up and around again. 
They still looked a little pale and all the 
scratches were not healed on their faces and arms. 
Daisy, under Auntie Mogs’ gentle care, looked 
happier than she had ever looked before in her 
life. She was perfectly at home until Tom came 
into the room, and then she would retire into a 
corner without a word to say. 

Mr. Weaver had been very quietly buried in 
the little churchyard, and a man found to work 
Daisy’s ranch on shares. When she spoke of 
applying for a position in school as school mis- 
tress, however, she met with absolutely no en- 
couragement. “For,” as Phyllis said, “we have 
a much better job than that for Daisy.” 

The last horseman was only a speck of yellow 
sand. Auntie Mogs turned to the girls. 


THE RANCH PUTS ON AIRS 181 


“Which room shall we do first?” 

“The dining room,” Phyllis replied, “because 
then we could save the best for the last.” 

They went into Auntie Mogs’ room. Mysteri- 
ous packages had been arriving from New York 
all week, and the room looked like the day before 
Christmas. 

“The curtains first,” Auntie Mogs directed, 
and she handed a pile of curtains to Phyllis. 

“We’ll have to do all the hard work, dear,” 
she said to her, “for Janet and Daisy are not 
strong enough.” 

“All right. Come along, Jan; you hold 
these curtains for me, and I’ll hang them up; 
then you can tell me if they’re straight enough. 
Auntie Mogs and Daisy can put on the slip 
covers.” 

They fell to it with a will. Phyllis hung up 
her first pair of curtains. 

“But they’re not straight,” Janet insisted. 


182 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Oh bother,” Phyllis replied, “they look 
straight from up here. If I have to take out 
that nail again, I’m going on strike. I smashed 
my finger every time I do it.” 

“Perhaps the hammer’s bewitched,” Janet 
suggested, chuckling. 

“Now, Jan., don’t try to be funny,” Phyllis 
warned. “I have you at my mercy,” and she 
dangled the hammer just above Janet’s head. 

“The sword of Damocles,” Daisy called from 
the other side of the room, where she was busy 
disguising the ugly chairs with dainty dresses. 

“I think,” Phyllis said impartially, “that of 
the two I would rather have the sword. How 
about you, Jan?” and she tapped Janet gently 
with the hammer. 

Janet caught her wrist, and by a little turn she 
had the hammer in her own possession. 

“Well, of all the impertinence!” Phyllis pro- 
tested. “Give me back my staff of office.” 


THE RANCH PUTS ON AIRS 183 

“Never! Come down off that ladder,” Janet 
commanded. “I’m going to hang those curtains 
straight.” 

“Never! I will not leave the ship,” Phyllis 
protested. 

There was a scrimmage, but before Auntie 
Mogs could protest Janet was up on the ladder, 
and in the twinkling of an eye the curtains hung 
straight and true. She hung the next pair and 
the next. 

“Now that’s finished,” she exclaimed, “let’s 
get off and see the general effect.” 

They went to the door and looked down the 
room. The morning sunshine fluttered in 
through the windows and the gay chintz seemed 
to laugh back at him. 

“It’s the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen,” 
Daisy enthused. 

“Well, I’m awfully glad you like it,” Phyllis 
said, and then stopped, laughing. 


184 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

“Why I?” Daisy asked, bewildered. 

“Oh, er — nothing; nothing at all; I’m just 
glad you like it,” Phyllis stammered. 

“Come on, let’s get Jose to help us put down 
the rug,” Janet suggested hurriedly. 

They found Jose only too delighted to help. 
He stood at the doorway of the dining room, his 
eyes and mouth wide open. 

“Spirit of hillsides,” he exclaimed. “Never 
have I seen such beauty, not even in gardens.” 

When he stopped enthusing he put down the 
soft grey-green Crex rug, and the result was 
indeed delightful. 

“Come along, this makes me perfectly crazy 
to do the other room.” Phyllis led the way. 
Auntie Mogs brought in the things and they fell 
to work in earnest. 

The four windows along the side were hung 
with a pleated valence and the window seat 
was covered by a tufted cushion. Phyllis’ slip 
for the rocking chair made a very brave showing. 



'There’s something wrong with it,” 
don’t know just what.” 


she admitted, “and I 
{Page 189.) 


— ' Whelms 


THE RANCH PUTS ON AIRS 187 

“There’s something wrong with it,” she ad- 
mitted, “and I don’t know just what.” 

Janet was looking at the chair, and suddenly 
she doubled up in a fit of laughter. 

“Of course,” she exclaimed, “the flowers are 
upside down.” 

“Oh,” Phyllis’ face fell, “what shall I do?” 

“Why nothing, silly; they’ll never notice it 
in this world,” Janet assured her. 

“I didn’t notice it myself,” Daisy admitted. 

They scattered pillows in all the big chairs. 
The rug was the same kind as the one in the 
dining room, and Auntie Mogs had a surprise 
that she had kept from the girls. Six lovely 
picture prints of Tom’s favorites. 

“Oh, Auntie Mogs, let’s hang them this very 
minute,” Janet cried. 

“Please put that lovely avenue of trees over 
the desk.” 

“And the Cathedral of Rheims between the 


188 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

windows. It’ll get such a wonderful light,” 
Phyllis suggested. 

The pictures went up, one by one, and at last 
everything was finished. They stepped back to 
view their handy work. 

“It still needs something,” Phyllis complained. 
“What is it, Daisy?” 

“Flowers,” Daisy replied promptly. 

“Of course,” the others agreed. “Let’s go and 
pick some.” 

They went out into the garden. It was just 
after a rain and the flowers looked as if they 
had just had a bath. They picked an armful of 
flowers and Daisy arranged them in the low 
quaint-shaped Indian bowls. 

Then, because they had such a long time to 
wait before the men got home, they all went to 
their rooms for a nap. 

“We really must look our freshest tonight in 
honor of Jose’s feast,” Phyllis laughed. 


THE RANCH PUTS ON AIRS 189 

“And, of course, our daintiest frocks,” Janet 
said, without thinking. 

Daisy’s face fell; she had no dainty frock. 
Her father had never seen the need of clothes 
for women, beyond the bare necessities. 

Auntie Mogs saw and read aright her sudden 
look of disappointment, and she followed her 
into her room. In fact, she spent the greater 
part of the afternoon there, and the result was 
well worth the effort bestowed upon it. 

When the boys got back it was quite late, and 
they went straight to their rooms for a wash-up 
before dinner. They were all in the best of 
humors, for delicious odors had been coming 
from the kitchen. 

A few minutes before dinner the twins, in 
pale yellow organdy, went into the dining room 
and took their places. Auntie Mogs in pearl 
grey and Daisy — Daisy needs a paragraph to 
herself. { 

She had on the sheerest and daintiest of all 


190 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


Auntie Mogs’ dresses. A dimity covered with 
pink sprigs of roses. It was made with an old- 
fashioned bodice that exactly suited Daisy’s 
quaint loveliness. Her eyes were shining with 
happiness, and her golden hair curled softly 
around her face. 

She and Auntie Mogs tiptoed into the room 
and took their places. 

“Daisy, how perfectly adorable you look!” 
the twins exclaimed together; and Daisy’s cup 
of happiness overflowed. 

Jose blew the bugle, adding several extra notes 
for good measure, and the boys, all unsuspecting, 
trooped into the room. 

They stopped in amazement just inside the 
door, all peering over each other’s shoulders. It 
took a good deal of persuasion on Auntie Mogs’ 
part before they would sit down at the table. 

Their remarks were characteristic, but most 
of them came later after dinner was over, and 


THE RANCH PUTS ON AIRS 191 


they were all seated in the now doubly comfort- 
able chairs in the living room. 

“I say, it’s a bit of home,” English said wist- 
fully. 

“It’s like a room in a moving picture play,” 
little Circus Bailey whispered. 

“Some room,” was Screw Williams’ contribu- 
tion. 

“I’ll say so,” Jim Martin’s gentle voice 
drawled. 

“And to think I hesitated,” Beggar said in a 
frightened voice. “Think what we might have 
missed.” 

“Well, little lady, it’s just beautiful,” said 
Sulky. 

Auntie Mogs looked at Tom. 

“What do you think of it, dear?” she asked. 
Tom drew a long breath. “I think it’s the most 
perfect thing I’ve ever seen,” he answered. 

He was looking straight into Daisy’s eyes as he 
said it. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

MORE PLOTS 

T HAT night and for many days after, the 
boys would suddenly grow mysterious 
every time any of the girls came near 
them. Of course, they pretended a very 
marked indifference when they suddenly stopped 
talking, but it was clear to the most casual ob- 
server that there was a scheme on foot. 

The twins were talking it over one night in 
their room. 

“I do wish I knew what it was all about.” 
(Phyllis was always curious.) “It drives me 

192 


MORE PLOTS 


193 


crazy to have Beggar suddenly stop talking if I 
happen to come around the corner. What can 
they be up to?” 

“I only wish I knew,” Janet laughed. “It 
certainly gives me the creeps. Why, only today 
I sauntered out to the barn to see Booster” — 
(Booster had limped in with Daisy’s horse the 
day after he had been let loose by Janet. One 
ankle was badly barked and he was being made a 
great fuss over by his adoring mistress) — “and 
I had distinctly heard all the boys arguing about 
something, but the very second I came around 
the corner they stopped short and Circus and 
Jim were grinning the most idiotic grins.” 

“Well, I suppose if we have patience we’ll 
find out all about it. Men never can keep 
secrets.” 

“I suppose so, but I should like to know now. 
Phyl., do you know that we have been here for 
over eight weeks and that we are going home in 
a few more?” 


194 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“No, I don’t suppose I do realize it. I feel as 
if I had only arrived yesterday.” 

“And I feel as though I had lived here all my 
life.” 

“Which amounts to the same thing really.” 

“I suppose so.” 

There was a long pause. J anet broke it. 

“Phyl,” she whispered. 

“Yes.” 

“Do you suppose we will like boarding 
school?” 

“Sure to. Look how Sally loves it, and Hill- 
top sounds rather nice, don’t you think?” 

“Yes, but I’m thinking about the girls, not 
the place.” 

“Well; what about them?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, but they’re sure to be dif- 
ferent.” 

“What’s the use of worrying, anyway?” 
Phyllis gave a sleepy little yawn and put out her 


MORE PLOTS 195 

hand to find Janet’s. “We have each other,” 
she said softly. 

It was a sign that the visit was nearing its end 
when the twins looked forward and made plans. 

The next morning the mystery deepened. 
Several cowmen from nearby ranches came over 
and joined in the talk which always stopped if 
the twins or Daisy or Auntie Mogs came in sight. 
In fact, the boys showed marked inhospitality 
towards their guests and tried to hide them 
behind grain boxes when the girls were near. 

It is difficult to hide six feet of man and 
usually a foot or a hand betrayed them. A Mr. 
Hunt from the XYZ came just at lunch time 
and Tom had to ask him to lunch. He intro- 
duced him as a business friend who had come 
over on a very important matter. They even 
made a pretence of talking business at the table 
while the rest looked grave and nodded their 
heads wisely at set intervals. 


f 


196 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


But it was all delightful play-acting and the 
twins could not look at each other for fear of 
laughing and spoiling it all. 

After luncheon, things began to materialize. 
Beggar asked Phyllis in the most offhand way 
if she would not go for a ride with him. 

“Of course I will, Beggar; I’d love to,” 
Phyllis replied quite naturally. 

“Good; and let’s get an early start. How 
about three o’clock?” Beggar suggested. 

Phyllis nodded. She did not trust herself to 
speak. 

“At the barn, then,” he called over his shoul- 
der as he left the house. 

“I’ll be there,” Phyllis promised. 

On the other side of the veranda English was 
talking to Janet. 

“I say, it’s a jolly afternoon for a ride. Let’s 
have one,” he suggested. 

“Love to,” Janet told him. 


MORE PLOTS 197 

“Righto; and meet me at three-thirty at the 
barn.” 

Janet nodded, but when English was out of 
sight she dashed for her room and found Phyllis 
rolled up in a ball in the bed, laughing. 

“The plot thickens,” Janet announced. “I’m 
to meet English at three-thirty.” 

“Just for a little ride, I suppose,” Phyllis 
laughed. 

“Yes.” 

“Well, I’m to meet Beggar at three-thirty.” 

“I wonder if they don’t think we suspect.” 

“Indeed they don’t, and I wouldn’t have them 
guess that we did for the world.” 

“Let’s go and find out when Auntie Mogs and 
Daisy are going,” Phyllis suggested, getting up. 

They dropped out of their window and were 
soon under Auntie Mogs’. They found Daisy 
with her. 

“My dears,” Auntie Mogs announced, without 


198 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

giving them a chance to ask questions, “I’m 
going for an automobile ride with Jim Martin. 
He thinks it’s a beautiful day that it would be 
a shame to spend it indoors/’ 

“Tom is going to take me over to the cabin. 
He thinks he ought to see the man who is 
working my land for me,” added Daisy. 

They all laughed heartily for a minute, and 
then Auntie Mogs said gravely: 

“Bless their hearts. They are having such a 
good time surprising us that we must be very 
careful not to let them guess that we know.” 
“What time are you going?” Phyllis inquired. 

“Three-fifteen, at the corral gates,” Daisy 
replied. 

“I’m leaving at four,” Auntie Mogs told them. 
“Well, the least we could do is to wear our 
very best riding habits,” Janet announced. 
“Come along, Phyl,” let’s go and prink.” 


CHAPTER XIX 

A WESTERN BARBECUE 

T HEY went back to their room, and when 
three o’clock came, Phyllis, as the leader 
of the procession, went down to meet 
Beggar looking as though she might be 
going for a ride in Central Park. 

They started off, to be followed fifteen min- 
utes’ later by Tom and Daisy, who rode off in 
the other direction. 

Janet had watched them depart from behind 
drawn shades, and now it was her turn. 

“I say, you do look nice,” English greeted her, 

199 


200 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

as she tripped down the steps in her shining top 
boots and snowy clean habit. 

They rode off in still another direction. 

Auntie Mogs left in the automobile at four 
o’clock. 

They all met other couples, and as they neared 
the foothills they saw a gorge filled with beau- 
tiful wild flowers. People were riding in from 
every direction. 

The twins recognized each other simultane- 
ously, and waved. 

“Isn’t this exciting!” Janet shouted. 

“I should say it is,” Phyllis called back. 
“Were you ever so surprised in your life?” 

“Never!” Janet answered emphatically. 

In a measure this was true, for as they watched 
the people collecting from every direction they 
could not help being surprised. It looked as 
though the world and his wife were there. 

“It’s going to be a lark,” Beggar announced. 


A WESTERN BARBECUE 201 

“There are the Bundy bunch. They’ve had a 
long ride.” 

Janet looked about her at the assembling 
hordes, and then at English. 

“But what is it?” she demanded. “Surely 
this isn’t just a picnic.” 

“I should say not,” Beggar answered her. “It’s 
a real sure-enough barbecue. When the Twin 
Stars entertains they do it right. Isn’t that so, 
English?” 

“Righto!” English nodded. 

“But you don’t mean that this is our party?” 
Phyllis asked in amazement. 

“It’s yours,” English explained. “You see, 
you are the Twin Stars. Tom named his ranch 
for you; and, of course, it’s the right thing to 
give a proper party in your honor.” 

Just then Auntie Mogs drove up in the car. 

The twins did not give her a chance to get out 
before they poured the amazing facts into her 


ears. 


202 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


A few minutes’ later the rest of the outfit 
joined them, and they dismounted. After that 
the whole evening was a dream to the girls, and 
they met people and shook hands until their 
arms were lame. 

They stood in the choicest spot of a huge 
circle that was boarded off, and watched the 
cowmen from all over the country ride bucking 
broncos in a contest. And to their joy they saw 
their own outfit carry off all the honors. They 
saw girls their own age doing things that they 
never dreamed could be done on the back of a 
horse outside the circus. 

Then they sat down to a feast for which whole 
pigs had been roasted, and after dinner they 
heard rough cowmen with beautiful voices sing 
all the songs they loved. Under flaring torches 
they danced the Virginia reel. 

The fun was so fast and furious that it was 
not until dinner time that the twins missed Tom 
and Daisy. 


A WESTERN BARBECUE 203 

“Where under the sun do you suppose they 
are?” Phyllis demanded. 

“Oh, they’re somewhere about,” Janet assured 
them. 

And then they saw them riding in from the 
south, their horses very close together and their 
own heads bowed in earnest conversation. 

They were not the only ones who saw them 
approaching. Someone recognized Tom and 
started to cheer. It was taken up by a hundred 
others and sounded and resounded through the 
hills. 

Tom stood up in the saddle and waved his 
hat. Then he and Daisy dismounted and they 
were soon lost to the twins’ view, for a crowd 
surrounded them at once, and they did not see 
them again until later in the evening. 

After the Virginia reel, Janet slipped away. 
She had eaten too much dinner and she wanted 
to be alone. She climbed up a steep rock and 


204 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

almost fell asleep lying looking up at the stars, 
when she heard voices beneath her. 

She was in a position where she could see and 
not be seen. The voices were very soft. Sud- 
denly, Janet sat up very straight. From out of 
the darkness a voice clear and distinct had said : 

“Daisy, my darling, tell me that you love me,” 
and another voice equally distinct had answered 
shyly : 

“I do love you, Tommy.” 

Janet slipped noiselessly from the rock and 
went back to Phyllis and the others. 

Under cover of the noise of the singing she 
managed to whisper into Phyllis’s ear: 

“It’s all right about Daisy and Tom.” 

“How do you know?” Phyllis asked excitedly. 

“Because I heard it,” Janet answered back, 
and Phyllis had to be content until they were 
alone at home that night. 


CHAPTER XX 

\ 

THE WEDDING 

T HE weeks that followed the never-to-be- 
forgotten barbecue were busy ones at the 
Twin Star Ranch. Tom and Daisy were 
going to be married almost at once. 

The first thing that Auntie Mogs did was to 

take Daisy up to Chicago for a week to buy her 

trousseau. The twins stayed at the ranch and 

every day something exciting was sure to hap- 
pen. 

Girls of their own age came in from different 
ranches to see them. They rode and it is to be 
205 


206 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 

feared that Janet, in her endeavor to ride like 
them, had many a mishap and, as English put it, 
“she came a cropper.” But Janet never minded 
learning a lesson, and, as Sulky pointed out, she 
never had to learn the same one twice. 

On the day that Auntie Mogs and Daisy 
were expected home, Phyllis drove the car into 
Loophole to meet them, and Janet sat beside 
her. They stopped at the general store, for Tom 
had some things to buy. 

“Here’s where I win my lolly-pops,” Phyllis 
laughed. “Come along in, Janet, and see if he 
can guess which is which.” 

“How about the scratch on my face?” Janet 
demanded. 

“Oh, that’s gone ages ago,” Phyllis assured 
her. 

They went into the store. Mr. Hartley was 
waiting on some customers, but he turned from 
them at once at sight of the twins, and rushed to 
them, his hands outstretched. 


THE WEDDING 


207 


“So you’re both here at last,” he said. 

He was so huge that Janet almost stepped back 
in sheer fright as he advanced towards them. 

“Well, which is which?” they both asked to- 
gether. Their smiles were identical, their clothes 
the same and their voice both had the same bell- 
toned quality. 

Mr. Hartley threw up his hands in despair 
and stampeded back to his counter again, re- 
turning with both hands full of lollypops. 

“As I don’t know which young lady I had the 
bet with, I will pay it to both, and deem it a 
privilege,” he said courteously. 

“Oh, thanks ever so much, they’re much too 
much. Really they are,” the twins protested. 

Tom called them from the door to say that it 
was time to go to the train, and Mr. Hartley 
ushered them to it affably. They left with the 
lollypops. 

Auntie Mogs and Daisy were the first ones 


208 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 
on the platform, and their welcome was all that 
they could have wished. 

“We’ve missed you awfully/’ Janet began. 

“Did you have a good time?” Phyllis inter- 
rupted. 

“Did you like Chicago, Daisy?” 

“We’ve had a ripping time since you left.” 

“The Bundy girls came to see us and stayed 
all night.” 

“And Jan. fell of! a horse because she would 
try to pick up a handkerchief from the ground.” 

“Well, you would see if the car would go 
fifty, and do look what she did to the fender.” 

“Children, do stop talking.” Auntie Mogs 
held up her hands in horror. “I think it’s high 
time I came home.” 

“I think so too,” said Daisy demurely, looking 
at Tom. 

“I’m sure of it,” he replied, squeezing her 
hand. 


THE WEDDING 


209 


They rode back to the ranch, where the boys 
gave them a roaring welcome. 

Janet and Phyllis divided their lollypops. 

The date of the wedding was set that night. 
It was to be just one week off. Phyllis and J anet 
dragged Daisy to her room as soon as her trunks 
came, and made her show them her pretty new 
things. Then they sat down on the bed, one on 
either side of her. 

“Daisy, you’re changed/’ Phyllis announced. 

“What is it?” 

“Happiness, and pretty clothes,” laughed 
Daisy. 

“No; you’re older,” Janet looked at her judi- 
ciously. 

“Perhaps,” Daisy nodded. “I feel as if I’ve 
grown up all of a sudden.” 

“Well, you have, I expect,” Phyllis said 
wisely. “I suppose you do when you’re buying 
trousseaux.” 


210 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Funny thing,” Janet mused. “Before you 
went away I always felt as if I were years and 
years older than you. Now I feel as if I am lots 
younger.” 

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Phyllis agreed. 

Daisy looked at their puzzled faces, and 
laughed heartily. 

“I don’t care how old or how young you think 
me,” she said, “as long as you always love me.” 

“Oh, we’ll always do that,” Janet promised. 

“Didn’t we make the match?” Phyllis in- 
quired. 

Daisy looked at her in surprise. 

“Did you want me to marry Tom?” 

“Why, of course we did, you silly,” the twins 
answered together. 

Daisy kissed them each and her eyes filled 
with tears. 

“I don’t see what makes everybody so good to 
me,” she said. 


THE WEDDING 


211 


Phyllis kissed her in return. 

“You goose,” she said. 

“It’s because you are Daisy,” Janet explained; 
and, somehow, the explanation seemed highly 
satisfactory. 

The day of the wedding found Janet and 
Phyllis up with the dawn, and they picked 
flowers steadily until breakfast time, and Beggar 
and English helped them. 

“Have you got just loads of rice ready?” 
Janet inquired. “We really want to shower them 
with it.” 

“Don’t worry,” Beggar told her, “we have 
loads of it, and all the boys have their own 
private stock.” 

They banked the flowers in every conceivable 
corner of the house. 

The wedding was to be at noon, and they were 
having a late breakfast. Daisy was in her room, 
for Auntie Mogs insisted that the groom should 
not see his bride until the ceremony. 


212 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“That’s the silliest superstition I’ve ever 
heard,” Tom said, “but if you say so, Auntie 
Mogs, it’s all right.” 

“Think you can live that long,” Jim Martin 
teased, and Tom grinned, but he was nervous a 
minute later. 

“For mercy sake, English,” he said, “as my 
best man, be sure not to forget the ring.” 

Janet was looking at Circus Bailey, as Tom 
spoke, and she distinctly saw him wink at Screw 
Williams. 

“Don’t worry, old chap; I’ll have it safe and 
sound,” English replied confidently. 

This time it was Screw Williams who winked. 

Janet knew that something was wrong, so 
after breakfast she called English out into the 
corral. 

“English, are you sure you’ve got the ring?” 
she inquired. 

English looked at her questioningly, and she 
explained the exchanged winks. 


THE WEDDING 213 

“Wait here,” English said; “I’ll not be a 
minute,” and he hurried into the house, to return 
a minute later with the news that the ring was 
gone. 

“I left it on my box, and of course they’ve 
hidden it.” 

“Don’t say a word about it,” Janet warned. 
“I may be able to find where they’ve hidden it, 
and then the joke will be on them.” 

English nodded and left her. 

What happened next was pure luck. Janet 
saw the two conspirators coming towards her, 
and she jumped into the barn and hid behind the 
big door, which was only half open. 

Screw and Circus came to a standstill not a 
foot from her on the other side of the door. 

“Where did you hide it?” Screw inquired. 

“In my pillow sham, ’way in the corner. 
They’ll never find it.” 

“How long are you going to tease him.” 


214 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Until five minutes before the ceremony.” 

“Bet he doesn’t turn a hair,” Screw remarked. 

“Bet he does.” 

i 

“How much?” 

“Ten bucks.” 

“Done!” 

They walked away and Janet danced out into 
the sunshine. 

“Poor Circus, I’m afraid he’ll lose his ten 
dollars.” 

“English,” she called softly, and English 
stepped down from the drawing-room window. 

“In Circus Bailey’s pillow slip,” she said, and 
had you been watching her you would have 
thought she was discussing the weather. 

“Thanks awfully, little pal,” he answered, and 
he slipped back into the house. 

Daisy made the most beautiful bride. She 
wore a soft white dress and veil, and the dead 
whiteness seemed to enrich her naturally vivid 
color. 


THE WEDDING 215 

Tom was a handsome groom. His usually 
merry eyes had a grave tender look in them, as 
he waited before the minister for Daisy to come 
to him. 

The twins were Daisy’s attendants, and they 
carried huge bunches of flowers and wore pale 
pink dresses. 

There was a gasp of surprise from Screw and 
Circus when the minister asked for the ring. 
English gave it to him in the calm way which 
he did everything. 

Janet almost laughed when she heard Screw 
say in a harsh tone that he fondly hoped was a 
whisper: 

“I win/’ 

The simplicity and beauty of the words of 
the marriage ceremony filled the pretty living 

room. It was crowded with people, for Tom was 
a great favorite, and a little sigh of perfect con- 
tentment ran through them all as, with hands 
raised the minister ended with the words: 


216 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


“Those whom God hath joined together, let 
no man put asunder.” 

The twins looked up, their eyes full of tears, 
happy tears. 

“We haven’t lost Tommy,” Phyllis whispered. 

“Or course not; we’ve gained Daisy,” Janet 
answered. 


CHAPTER XXI 

STARTING EAST 

T HE train pulled out of Loophole at four 
o’clock in the afternoon, and on the par- 
ticular day of the twins’ departure, the 
platform was crowded with people. All 
the outfit of the Twin Star were there, with Tom 
and Daisy, just returned from their wedding 
trip. 

Janet and Phyllis stood on the back platform 
with Auntie Mogs. 

“Good-bye, Beggar; don’t forget, you prom- 
ised to write,” Phyllis called. 


217 


218 THE TWINS IN THE WEST 


Janet leaned down and shook English’s hand 
once more; then she turned to Sulky. 

“Goodbye, Uncle Pete,” she whispered. “I’ll 
be sure and give Peter all your messages.” 

Sulky squeezed her little hand hard. 

“Goodbye, little lady,” he said. “Goodbye, 
and the best of luck.” 

The train pulled slowly out of the station as if 
it sympathized and would fain linger for more 
farewells, but at last with a sorry cough it lum- 
bered on its way. 

When the station was out of sight they went 
in and sat down in the coach. Auntie Mogs’ 
observant eye saw traces of tears. 

“All aboard for the next big adventure,” she 
said briskly. “Boarding school. Suppose we be- 
gin by deciding what clothes you’d better have.” 


THE END. 




















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